Thursday 5/12- it was a short voyage, only 20 miles. Good-bye pretty gulf water, hello brown Okeechobee water.
But that was intentional, because our next travel day will be 57 miles, and the next one after that will be 63. Fort Myers is a better starting point for going up to Lake Okeechobee, since we like to go from here all the way to St Lucie with just one overnight stay. The weather is looking great for crossing the lake. It is a big body of water that you want to cross with low winds because it is very shallow and can get gnarly. We don’t do gnarly. 😬
I still have not heard from any of my private slip owners for our 2-3 week stay request near Ft Lauderdale. 😟 So while we were motoring along, I had an idea to contact a looper friend that used to live in that area. She did have a marina idea that I had not considered. They offer a monthly rate that is equal to 17 days by the daily rate. At that, it would still be $1500/month. UGH! Here’s keeping fingers crossed that somebody will come through for us!
We arrived at the Legacy Harbor Marina, and were pleasantly surprised that there wasn’t much wind inside the marina basin. YAY! It’s been windy in our face all morning. The dockmaster was nice and helpful, really a nice gal. We chillaxed a while and had some lunch then, around 3:00, I coaxed Kenny to walk to a nearby brewery.
It did brighten his mood a bit 😉. He tried a couple of beers, and I had the porter. He said he might need to come back tomorrow to try a couple more.
We stopped at the grocery store on our walk back, and got some fried chicken for dinner. Tomorrow I’ll keep working on our Ft Lauderdale stay. At least I heard back from a marina with a confirmed reservation for our Monday night. 👍
*****
Friday- We all know that Kenny is not an eager beaver to get out of bed in the morning. I reminded him of the donut store across the street, so when he did get up, we took a stroll.
But – you snooze you lose around here. There was very little selection, but he did score three fresh donuts. Just not the bacon maple or heath bar crunch that he was probably hoping for.
Back at the boat, I spent several hours trying to figure out where we’re going to stay next week. I was not having any luck. I heard back from the one private slip owner, and they said they could accommodate us for $1500, one month minimum. Yikes. I can do that at a marina. 🤨 And then the marina that I wanted to stay at on Tuesday has no room. Grrr! There is about a 50 mile stretch between Lake Worth and Port Everglades, with not a lot of marinas to choose from. It doesn’t sound like much, but there are a lot of no-wake zones and at least nine bridges that we need to have open. It could be done in one day, but I don’t know if we want to do that. It sounds like a really long day. So I finally had to take a break and go for a walk before I screamed.
I saw a couple of fun pictures. Dolphins!
And a pretty tree.
Once I got back home, I asked Kenny if he wanted to go back to the brewery. He said it was supposed to rain soon, and beer is cheaper here at the boat. So I poured my nice favorite Left Hand peanut butter stout. 😋 Then I tried to figure out our Tuesday again. I was previously trying to split it up by number of bridges, so Tuesday would be about 35 miles and five bridges, Wednesday would be 16 miles and four bridges. But that just isn’t going to work. There is no place to stay, and the east coast is really picky about where you can just drop an anchor. (Besides the forecast of hot and sweaty days and nights.) So, maybe we could go just 17 miles and one bridge on Tuesday, then 34 miles and eight bridges on Wednesday? I put in a reservation request at Boynton Beach Marina. We’ll see. At least all of the bridges are timed opening, on the :00 and :30, then the :15 and the :45, and one is the :00, :20, and :40. So once we’re on a roll, we shouldn’t have to wait long to proceed. Maybe? We’ve never been through this stretch of the ICW before. I also called a marina for our 2-3 week stay, and have not heard back yet. Patience grasshopper. All will work out. But my brain is exploding with frustration. 🤯🤬
And then….. the thunderstorm hit. Boy did we ever have some thunderousboomus!! Needless to say, we didn’t walk to town for dinner tonight!
Tomorrow we’ll head east. At least we have reservations for the next three nights, and then we’ll be on the east side of Florida. Today we got an email narrowing the ETA of AAL GENOA into Port Everglades to June 3-5. We’ll see. I’m certainly not holding my breath! Right now she’s headed from Houston to Veracruz Mexico.