Vero Beach to West Palm Beach – 57 nautical miles sailed, 13 bridges
We were underway by 6:45am, stopping briefly at the fuel dock to fill up our water tanks and give the boat a quick washdown as she had been collecting dirt and was getting pretty yucky. I normally keep the boat’s exterior immaculate, spending hours on the summer weekends washing her, but I’ve found that to be less easy to do without easy access to fresh water. Yes, you can wash the boat decks with salt water, but it hardens the lines and makes everything sticky. So SeaLight has not kept up her usual beauty standards on this trip.
Waddington had left before us but we caught up to her at the first bridge and lucked out by arriving just as it was opening. Shortly after passing through we spotted a manatee surfacing just outside of the channel (Morning Manatee – check!) then a pod of dolphins just after that (Daily Dolphin – check!). We are getting spoiled.
We’d been told that the ICW from Vero to Miami was chock-a-block with bridges and they weren’t wrong. We passed under no fewer then 11 of them today, many which opened either on signal or on the hour or half hour, which really impacts your progress as you end up spending a lot of time circling, waiting for them to open.
As we passed Fort Pierce the water changed colour, transforming from muddy brown to Caribbean blue, and it all seemed to happen within a mile or two. Another transformation was the quantity of boats and level of development along the waterway. Mansion after mansion after mansion but strangely, we did not see a single person sitting on the patio of their mansion, or in the pool of their mansion, or on the dock of their mansion, or in the yacht floating outside of their mansion. I expect they were all busy making business deals to further expand their wealth. Dough for Show methinks.
We passed a sailboat named Lola and I heard his discussion with a bridge operator.
“Jupiter Island Bridge, this is sailing vessel Lola looking for a lift,” radio’d the captain
“Southbound sailboat, could you repeat that vessel name?” replied the bridge operator.
In a dark brown voice he said, “Lola. L-O-L-A Lola. La-la-la-la Lola.”
In fact he didn’t say that, but I couldn’t understand it. Why else would you name your boat Lola?
It was a very long day on the water, broken up only by my test lunch of Dollar Tree Chili. The texture of the substance was akin to wet dog food and the smell was chili-like, but with a suspect chemical undertone fragrance that made me think of the meal simulator machines they used on the starship Enterprise. It’s chili, but not really chili. All in all, once I paired it with fresh buttered bread and a chopped and peppered tomato, it wasn’t bad. But I couldn’t eat it every day.
We finally arrived at the Phil Foster Park anchorage around 5:30 as the sun was setting, capping off a full 10.5 hours on the water. Ana made us a spectacular plate of nachos with peppers, onions, beef, salsa, sour cream, and a blanket of melted cheese. I don’t think we’ve ever made nachos at home before. Amazing.
After doing some route planning for tomorrow, which was going to require even more bridges than today, I struggled through half an episode of a show with Ana and called it quits at 8:30.
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