Magnolia moves definitely into south Florida!

Vero Beach is such an easy place to be it is often referred to as Velco Beach.  We have so many happy memories here. This is “THE PLACE” to meet fellow cruisers. I remember meeting  Acapella here…we spend time with so many boats here. Our friends EleanorQ & Journey are not out this year but boy we have some happy memories.

We eventually broke loose of the Velcro and made the short trip to Fort Pierce to meet up with some VIP guests!

Mike and I served aboard Ticonderoga the early 1980s. We have crossed paths a couple of times over the years but since they have moved to south Florida I look forward to many more visits.

I gvuess the only bad thing is they way my toupe’ looks in this picture! Mike wears his much better!!!

From Fort Pierce we made a stop in Stuart looking forward to our next VIP guests…yup we have more coming!

We have been to Stuart once before for a short visit so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to explore.  Upon our arrival we me up with our friends on Pegasus. We have had brief visits on docks from Florida to New York but have never been in the same place long. Pegasus introduced us to Acadia and well as you can see, the party was on!

We did have a lovely week and though the pictures do not include the chores accomplished rest assured they did get done! We have VIPs coming!!!

We headed a few miles further south to Palm Garden to meet Annette’s  sister Rochelle and Robbins who were to be in the area on vacation.

We had a terrific day sightseeing around Jupiter and just catching up. I also believe I was able to identify the famous Tiger Woods fire hydrant! We got an early start to the day and before anyone knew it it was time to start getting the boat readied for departure.

Our plan was to get underway from Palm Gardens, go down the ICW to Lake Worth Inlet and get down the coast as quick as we could. The Christmas Winds are blowing from the east and weather windows allowing travel this time of the year can be short and very narrow. Hence we were threading the needle a little bit…

Mar-A-Lago is just a few miles south of the Lakeworth Inlet. The Coast Guard had established a 1000yd security zone off shore so we headed straight out to stay out of trouble. As you can see the CG was going their bit to ensure security. Believe me, the boat had 2 50 Cals on the bow ready to go!!

We had an amazingly fast run down to Miami where we ran into some ship traffic as they were going into Port of Miami. The below maneuver is referred to as the “Bryan Peters.” When presented with the opportunity to stay away from the pointy end of a speeding cargo ship take it…its hard for them to back over us!!! An extra 10 min, no fuss, no stress.

As we passed Miami and began our over night trek down the keys, we were definitely rewarded by the skyline views as sunset.

We had a quiet over night passage. Normally we would take two days and travel inside the reef in the Hawk Channel. As you recall though we were threading the needle on this passage and that forced us into an over night outside the reef. Also outside that reef is the Gulfstream. We were not immediately in the current but we could definitely tell it was right near us. If our course drifted out 1/4 mile off the reef we were immediatly bucking a 1 knot current. Pretty amazing how a small distance can make all the difference. Turas/Agape take note!

Not surprisingly all the mooring balls are currently full in Boot Key soo we dropped the hook west of the harbor.

We are a little exposed but provided with some epic views of the gulf…”you know, we can see Cuba from here!” Its only about 70 miles from here.

Next we are getting ready or the next part of our adventure. So you thought Key West was about as far west as you can go…but no, we are ging another 70 miles to the west to the Dry Tortugas! We are totally juiced!