In St. Augustine we tried to locate our friends. Everyone was gone. Curtis was in Savannah with his girl. Kelly missed us. All art was banned in the park so there were none of our vending buddies to be found. It was a ghost town. So we left after the storm. There were 35-40 knot winds. The wind created a record low tide that dried some of the marina docks.



Delphine was actually sitting on the bottom for a few hours. Because the wind was from the west, it blew all the water out the inlet. We had always known this as a deep harbor (18feet), so we were surprised.

We managed to make it over to Sailor's Exchange, a used marine store, but it was closed. They remembered us and opened the door for us. They had been closed for several months to reorganize. We bought some new anchor rode and used LED lights. What a score. Rachael and Dave were shocked by the things that were available there for pennies.



Above is a picture of the most beautiful and wild section of the Florida ICW. We took this pictue in August of 2006. I'm sure the developers feel they have made an improvement by adding a bike path. We hate what they did with the land. Below is what it looks like now.



We stopped in Daytona to visit Todd, Kim and Maria. They were looking to buy a new boat while we were in a boatyard in Palatka. We have kept in touch ever since exchanging stories. We stopped to visit with them and introduced Rachael and Dave. They made us a steak dinner and I grilled some zuchini at their house. It was good to see them again.



We made it to New Smyrna and decided to stop early at the free dock right down town. We heard that they don't always enforce the "No Overnight Docking" rule. So we tied up and biked to the beach. We stayed overnight without trouble. It is amazing more towns don't allow this for the sake of commerce.

We left early the next day and made it to Titusville where our friend Caleb has taken up being a dock rat. We were shocked, but he loves it there. It is where he is from. He took us to the nearby island that was very clean with cute little trails and sweet sunset campsites. The island was covered in super tiny unbroken shells. No one cares if you camp there, unlike Christmas Tree island of Key Weird. He was trying hard to get us to stay, but there's not much there.





Rachael and Dave had to stop in Daytona due to engine trouble. They're about 5 days behind us now.





Turkey Creek is where we dock the boat at Bill and Kitty's in Melbourne. It is so calm in there that we decided to finally climb the mast to replace a bulb and check the connection for our VHF radio. Bill and Kitty were kind enough to offer us the use of their car so we ran a few errands in Melbourne. They also took us out to a nice Mexican restaurant, kind of a rare thing in Florida.



After Melbourne was a day trip to Ft. Pierce, then another day to Lake Worth. We've had great wind to help us along. Above is a picture taken in Hobe Sound. This is where the water starts to become blue.



This picture was taken near in Jupiter. It was a Saturday afternoon and the waterway was very busy. These kids really seemed to know how to have a good time. They had their own portable tiki bar and dance floor.

We knew we wanted to go on the outside at this point to bypass the densest section of drawbridges on the ICW and the winds happened to be favorable for doing this, 10-15 out of the west switching to NW in the afternoon. We went out at Lake Worth inlet and traveled all day, almost 50 miles, to Port Everglades, Ft. Lauderdale.



This was taken going out the inlet that morning. The clouds dissipated and the weather was perfect for an outside trip.





We weren't expecting the Gulfstream current to be against us only a few miles from shore but it slowed us down intermittently throughout the day. Fortunately, we made it to the inlet by sundown. We anchored in Sylvia Lake, a very small lake in the heart of Ft. Lauderdale. It was surrounded by million dollar homes. So it made going ashore difficult and our stay there was limited to 24 hours before the city illegally kicks you out. FL law says we can anchor anywhere we want for as long as we want but many towns are ignoring this knowing most people don't have the time or money to fight it and we are among those people. So we unfortunately had to leave the next day and were unable to visit Andy and Nena in their hometown. Hopefully, they will visit us in Miami Beach, although, it is spring break here and we wouldn't wish anyone the annoying drive after a long day of work.

Until next time, have fun.