Wind & Current then Crazy Boat Traffic

This is another combined post and is the conclusion of our March cruise up and down the Florida east coast. Tomorrow Martha and I say good bye to our good friends Debbie and Bill that have been with us for the last two weeks. They return to NJ by air and we begin our trek north. We have had a great time with them and enjoyed the new experiences and adventures.

We all spent time in Cocoa Village during our two nights there, and once again enjoyed the Travis hardware store. It is part flea market, museum and hardware store. They have an incredible selection of items throughout the multi building and multi floor establishment. You just don't see hardware stores like this anymore.

We headed down to Fort Pierce on Wednesday morning and had a good run down the Indian River and through the Vero Beach area. The wind and current at the Fort Pierce City Marina made fueling and docking a bit of a challenge. Kenny is the  friendly dockhand that has helped us each time we have been there, and he got us taken care of after struggling to hold the boat in place waiting for a spot at the fuel dock. It was a challenge even with the joystick. Some other slip holders later told us that they had seen some pretty bad crashes in the marina due to strong current and winds. I will be extra careful next time. I don't want to be a statistic!!

I saw a manatee in the dock area along with a lot of large fish. It seems that the manatee are starting to appear more as the water warms up. We enjoyed walking around town and had an excellent Mexican meal with some very refreshing margaritas.

Our final travel day of this cruise was a little crazy and tested my nerves. We knew there would be a number of no wake areas to contend with, but I was not prepared for the number of obnoxious boaters that I have heard so much about. I was especially surprised since it was a Thursday. I thought the weekends were supposed to be the bad days. We were waked a number of times by both larger and smaller boats and were really bounced around. The Jupiter area is known for the beautiful water, but boats were out in force, zipping here and there, and their aggressive boat driving took away from the beautiful surroundings. As we approached North Palm Beach the wind really started to kick up. We had to  wait for the one bridge before leaving the small ICW channel to enter Lake Worth. As we crossed under the bridge, we caught sight of large whitecaps all heading towards the marina we needed to get too. We made the sharp turn to port, followed the channel, called the marina and found out they wanted us to dock in their north basin instead of the south basin that we were familiar with. We found our way to the docks and had to fight the wind to get into the slip. Needless to say, I was really glad to be tied up and safe for the night after such a wild day. We are docked with a number of very large beautiful super yachts. We feel like pygmies next to these monsters. I enjoy cooking shrimp and grits, so that is what we had for dinner. Bill had never had grits before. I don't know if everyone like the meal, but there was nothing left on the plates when we were finished.

I am hoping that we will be able to go on the outside tomorrow to return to Fort Pierce. I really don't want to retrace the path down here.....................especially on a Saturday.

Bill and I enjoyed a walk down the road today and Martha and Debbie spent some time at the North Palm Beach Country Club pool. We all had a very nice dinner this evening at the restaurant there to celebrate the end of this adventure.