We hung around Ft Pierce
much longer than we had planned. Matthew
came to Florida so we waited to visit with him.
Then Kathleen’s sisters, Theresa and Beanie came down to Clearwater for
some fun in the sun. We drove over to
visit them. We enjoyed the West Coast
and Beanie showed that still has what it takes to do cartwheels
.Kathleen showed us how to make dribbled sand
castles. I think that Gaudi’s Sagrada
Familia must have been inspired by the technique.
Sometimes, you can get some
pretty bizarre results—do you see Richard Nixon in this one?
We left Ft Pierce bound
for Lake Worth. The day started sunny
and warm but by 10 it was cloudy. Then
the rain set it and we had it off and on for about 3 hours. Sometimes it was heavy and the cloud cover thick
enough to prevent satellite reception for the GPS. We were nearly blind. Between the two of us, we were able to make
out the channel markers through the rain.
We got soaked! We made it to an
anchorage in Lake Worth (5 miles short of the preferred destination) and got
Bruno to shore for his business.
The next day, we motored
on the outside to Ft Lauderdale. We met
Jim and Ellie (s/v Finnirish) and Peter’s sailing buddy Al and his wife Phyllis
for dinner at the Quarterdeck. Ft
La-di-dah was packed with tourists and sun worshippers as usual.
The Greek Festival was in
full swing.
I’m sure St Demetrios Greek
Orthodox Church made a bundle because it was unbelievable crowded. The food was so-so, not even any authentic
gyros! The pastries were good, especially the baklava. How can you go wrong with walnuts and honey? Like any place where there
are crowds, people-watching was great.
The dancing was fun to watch, especially the men. They stomp back and forth from one foot to
the other with their heads low and swinging.; makes me think they look like
bulls. Then they’ll slap the ground with
one hand then the other as they drop onto the knee that corresponds to the
hand. Then they stand up, slp with their
right hands on the outside of their right feet and then jump way up into the
air. All the while their female partners
are bowing in front of them slowly clapping.
Oh, yeah, they’re dancing around their drinks!
While waiting for a
suitable weather window to cross to Bimini, we had sun-downers with Mike
(Sailing cat Sponge Bob on our dock) and a really sweet young couple next to us
on the dock, Peter and Rachel (s/v aurora).
They are doing it right. They have a bare bones boat, as much as they
could afford, I guess and they are doing it the way our boat suggests, Now or
Never! I hope they have a good crossing.
We left Ft Lauderdale at
5 AM and dropped the hook in Nixon’s Harbor at 7 PM—53 miles in 14 hours. We had the main up for most of the trip. It didn’t help much with speed, but it did
steady the boat. Nixon’s Harbor? You
ask. Yep that guy. Seems back in the day Richard Nixon had a
house near his friend’s (Bebe Rebozo) on the bay on South Bimini. At any rate, it’s a reasonable good anchorage
and easy to get into even at night (the light on Round Rock is no longer
functioning so you either need GPS or good visibility). During the night, it got pretty rocky and
rolly but we slept through it.
So here we are at Bimini
Blue Water Marina. It’s quiet here, no
trains, no trffic noises, no emergency sirens, no bridge construction. But it did rain, a tropical downpour about
midnight! A minor thing. We closed the hatches and were rocked back to
sleep. It was quite windy the next day
and we watched an impressive storm built over the ocean with huge breaking waves and
thunder and lightning.
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