To Fort Pierce City Marina

We had a great trip across Biscayne Bay to Miami. Often saw flying fish. They can travel a long distance before they go back into the water. Making 8 bounces before falling under. We had often heard that Biscayne Bay can get real nasty, but we had a picture perfect trip. We could see the waterfront buildings of Miami for a long time before we actually arrived. Fortunately the traffic was minimal as it was a Monday morning. We were told to avoid this area on a Saturday and Sunday.

As we travelled along the ICW it was evident we were in the high rent district. Not sure where all of the wealth comes from. The homes are palatial, and the boats are huge. Everyone should post a sign so we could know how they made all of this money. There was a boat calling on the radio, saying the boat name was "Imagine" Peter figures it must be Paul McCartney's boat. A day later we saw the boat in a marina and it was flying a British flag ?????? Perhaps it is McCartney's boat. That's our story and we are sticking to it.

Steve and Linda made reservations to tie alongside a restaurant, "Joe's Tiki Bar and Sushi Grill" in Hollywood Beach area. They had been here before and had left their boat for a month. This is a really fun place. We were 1 block from the beach and the ocean. They have an oceanside boardwalk that goes on forever. After dinner we went for a walk and an ice cream. At 7:00 pm entertainment started at the Hollywood Beach open air theatre. They had bench seats where we could eat our ice cream and enjoy the music.

We returned to the boats, and Joe's Tiki Bar had great entertainment till about 11:00 pm. We had to sit on the bow of the boat and enjoy. Life is hard, but we are working up to being able to keep up with the pace. We enjoyed the first evening and decided to stay over one more night.

We got up to see the sunrise over the Atlantic and have breakfast. It was a good way to spend the first part of the day. Surprising how many people are out at that time of the day.

Peter had another day in the "bowels of the beast" to try and find out what was causing the stbd engine to overheat. He has had almost the entire parts of the engine off. He only had the waterjacket before the exhaust manifold to check. BINGO. He found parts of 1 or 2 zincs, and a lot of crud that had build up over the years. The waterjacket itself slants slightly to the back before it joins the exhaust system and due to the design it is a natural place for stuff to settle and block the exhaust. He cleaned it all up and VOILA. The engine now runs without overheating. SUCCESS. While it still runs a little hotter than the port, it is well within the zone.

Now if we can only find the air leak on the port engine. Peter plans to go through all of the connections, one by one, and work his way to the back of the system.

To celebrate our success, we had a late lunch in the Tiki Bar. Later we repeated our ice cream run and entertainment at the Hollywood Beach Theatre. It was OK, but decided to go back to boats and check out their entertainment. Drinks in hand and sitting on the deck of the boat, we realized it was Karoake Night. After a couple more drinks Peter and Steve decided to show their talents. The first song was a Simon and Garfunkel. In fairness to them, it was a slow song and really hard to sing at the best of times. They realized they needed more practice, so they sang not just one more song, but another two songs. They definitely were improving. We have the movies ...... and are threatening to post them if they are ever not nice to us.

We finally had to leave Joe's Tiki and Hollywood Beach and continue along the ICW towards an anchorage just south of West Palm Beach. This part of the ICW is one huge home after another, often with a monstrous boat tied to the wall along a side channel. This area knows nothing about a recession, or high gas prices. That being said there are a number of homes that are for sale, but not as many as you might think.

We travelled 8 hours, and the winds were up fairly good and we were tired. We pulled off the ICW into an area where there were a number of sailboats anchored. Figured if there was enough water for them, we should be good. The anchors held good on the first drop. The winds were to die down into the evening and night, and they did quite nicely. However by 5:00 am, someone turned on the switch and the winds started to build again.

We left in good time the next morning from West Palm Beach, and our destination was Manatee Pocket. Ended up being a 5.5 hour run. We are starting to see homes with more grounds. Homes set on 1 acre plus lots. More rural areas, with some small lakes to cross. You still have to make sure you stay on the marked channel. It doesn't take long to get out of the channel and you are in 3.5 to 4 feet of water. And I don't want to test the accuracy of the GPS when it says 1 foot of water.

Steve and Linda saw some manatee while we were travelling today. They also saw the paddle that had bounced out of the dinghy, but they did not think it was ours so they left it for the owners to return and get it. Peter saw a ray jump out of the water. We arrived Manatee Pocket about 3:30. Anchored in an area between 2 marinas; Marine Cay and Pirates Cover, fairly well protected. It was good to get out of the wind. Dinner with Steve and Linda, aboard Yesterday's Dream. Steve had made his always popular Conch Chowder. We sat on the flybridge watched the sunset, ate our salad, and then had chowder downstairs. While we were there, Steve caught 3 catfish, that he gave to Peter. Peter was cleaning fish till 11:00 pm. Did you know that those things can still get you with one of their spikes even after they are dead? Peter does now.

We want to travel to Fort Pierce for the weekend. The winds are building and are expected to stay high from Friday noon through Sunday. Severe weather warnings are out for this time. Good time to get tied to a dock. Steve has already made the reservations. We were up early and away in good time to get into Fort Pierce before noon. Only 21 miles and nothing to see, just a huge expanse of water with a narrow channel to try and travel in. 3.9 feet out of channel to port and 5.9 feet out of channel to stbd. Channel depth 8.5 to 10 feet.

Fort Pierce is a great marina to be right now. Tonight they have Friday Fest (once a month) and over 5,000 people attend. They have a lot of displays set up and we plan to go up and see what they have to eat for dinner tonight. Also this weekend is their Oyster Fest. We will miss it because we just rented a car; a VW Beetle to go back to Marathon and get our car and move it up. We also need to go over to Punta Gorda to Surona. The floors are done and laying in the boat. While they took over a month to do a supposed 1 week job, now that it is done they want to get paid ASAP. It has been done for over a week, and probably more like 2 weeks. This is the first time we have had time to make the trip.

There is too much wind to travel so now is a good time to look after this. Steve and Linda want to spend a day or so here, so if we can get this done, we may be able to continue to travel with them for awhile longer. At least to St. Augustine where they will be stopping for awhile.