Ft. Lauderdale to Palm Beaches - The Gold Coast

As we had hoped, we left Lake Sylvia in Ft. Lauderdale early and got through the 22 bridge openings without serious troubles. Timing is key to this stretch, since the bridges are not that far apart and most have scheduled times for opening. For some we had to go slow, knowing we couldn't make an opening and would have to arrive later for the next. Once that worked against us in that the bridge opened late and we could have made it, but we ended up waiting another half hour. In another case, the bridge was being taken apart, so we didn't have to wait as we had expected, and a third had been reported to be opened on request, but now it is on a schedule, and, missing the opening by five minutes, were left to wait another 25 minutes for the next. In the world of cruising, these would all be considered minor issues. We arrived safely at our anchorage near Peanut Island in Lake Worth, otherwise known to landlubbers as the Palm Beaches.

 One advantage of traveling on the ICW in this part of Florida as apposed to driving on the Interstate, is that one gets to see the level of wealth that resides here. Included are a few photos of what I like to refer to as examples of conspicuous consumption.

The next day we enjoyed a great visit with my sister Mary Jo and her family. They took us to lunch in downtown West Palm Beach. The center of the city has lots of appeal, and we enjoyed a bit of a tour. They then provided transportation to a couple of stores. (We miss not having a car at times.) After a meal at their home, we were returned to our dinghy.

The next day we planned to tour Peanut Island, now a park run by the city. On it is a small museum which includes a bunker built to protect President Kennedy when he was staying at his Palm Beach home. The most interesting aspect of this bunker was how basic it was – nothing like we see in movies. It appeared to be Quonset hut under ground with the most basic of accommodations for a small group of people for up to a month. As surprising was the fact that Peanut Island was man made, thanks to Henry Flagler who wanted to create a port in Palm Beach. He had an inlet dug across the barrier island of Palm Beach into what was then fresh water Lake Worth. Now, of course, it is salt water. No EPA back in 1915.

The entrance to Kennedy's fallout shelter

The missing items from the photo are the bunk beds and containers of  food.  No high tech communications equipment to be found.  There was an short wave radio transciever  and a telephone.

After touring the museum we had planned to spend more time on the island before returning to the boat. However we saw that a large motor yacht somewhat longer than 100 feet had moved into the rather small anchorage area containing our boat and several others. We watched to see what was up. It soon became apparent that the boat was anchoring there, so be took the dinghy back to see how close it actually was to our boat. Upon returning, we saw that it was way too close for safety. We just couldn't believe that such a big boat would have attempted to anchor in such close quarters. I would have been unhappy if a 30 footer had anchored as close. After watching it swing and our boat swing at anchor for a short time, we determined that we would move. It just wasn't safe. We pulled up the anchor and moved off.

This was our neighbor within 40 feet of us before we moved.

As we were leaving, someone from the bridge deck of the yacht tried to get my attention for some reason, but I couldn't under stand or hear him, so I just continued on to our new anchorage about a half mile away. A short time later, we noticed that the tender was headed our way. (I say tender and not dinghy, because it was somewhere around 25 ft long.) He came up along side and sought to apologize for forcing us to move. He said there was no other spot nearby for him to anchor. He was expecting a VERY important guest, so he found himself forced to squeeze in to a spot that was really small. He said that he had planned to have a 24 hour watch and all. I was polite but told him I wasn't planning to put myself into the position where I'd be stuck providing the same. He understood and once again apologized and offered a bag with wine in it and mentioned a bit of money to help make up for our inconvenience. I assured him that wasn't necessary, but he insisted. I figured that he was a member of the crew and it wouldn't look good to the owner if he was unable to get me to accept the gift, so I thanked him and took it. After he departed, we looked into the bag and found two bottles of wine that our wine book priced at more than $50 a piece and an envelope with $300 in it. We were blown away!

This stop in Lake Worth has been most memorable. Oh, by the way, we can report that the first bottle has been opened, and it was excellent!

Captain Bob
Carpe Diem