Life on Zingara

 Amazing houses along the Intracoastal on our way to Fort Lauderdale.  I've never seen anything like this, except maybe in the movies!   Tree trimmer   The famous pink tower of Boca Raton, right at the water.   The "small" boats of Boca Raton  Meet you at the pool!  A "traffic jam" of different-sized boats, waiting for the bridge to lift. We anchored at the Las Olas Beach Marina, just two blocks away from the Atlantic Ocean.

Our quiet anchorage in the Manatee Pocket near Stuart.  We never actually saw any Manatees, just the spray, as they clear their noses.  But still, LOTS of dolphins! Following other boats out onto the ICW We're heading down to Delray, with mostly sunny skies, warm (high 70s) but windy (10-15 knots).  The Intracoastal will have some chop on it, but nothing that Zingara (and crew) can't handle. Heading into the Palm Beaches -- more and more incredible houses.  We also came across a Saturday morning SUP race in West Palm Beach. Lots of racers  --- looked like lots of FUN,while causing a little bit of nervous-travel for Zingara and other boaters. We finally found a marina in Delray,  Zingara in the DelRay Harbor Club Marina --- those are (sometimes loud) condos surrounding the marina. Delray Harbor Club Marina Pool.  It was fabulous.  We swam in it before Happy Hour, then Rick took a quick dip in the morning be...

Dolphins and More Dolphins! We had an amazing day watching the dolphins, jumping in our wake, several of the guys were doing full-body jumps, and slapping the water when they came down.  Several times, it was only because of the slapping noise that we discovered they were there. Vero Beach is a fabulous town, with one Mac-mansion out-doing the next.  Vero Beach has the nickname of "Velcro Beach", as once you're here, you're stuck, and never want to leave. The pictures I took don't really show the beauty (and the Money$$$$) of the homes along the Intracoastal.  I've never seen any thing like this before. We watched as a storm was coming in from the Atlantic Ocean ... and luckily beat it  into the St. Lucie River, near Stuart, to anchor for the night on the Manatee Pocket.

Fun with Dolphins!    At one point we had 3 at our bow, 2 jumping our wake off the starboard side, and 4 on our port side.   We couldn't get enough of these magical creatures.  They really seemed to be having fun, frolicking in our wake. Here's just a cool picture of one of the "cuts" (a man-made short cut between natural rivers/lakes) of the Intracoastal.  Mangroves!  Passing Cape Canaveral And we made it to Melbourne!   In time to meet with Cousin Stinky Joe, and his lovely wife Lora!  They live up in Fort Wayne, IN, but have a trailer down in Kissimmee.  They drove to meet us for dinner and a much-needed grocery-store run.  Thank you so much for driving over! (of course, I forgot to get a picture of all of us!) 

As it was getting late, we anchored out in a quiet cove near the St. Augustine Bridge.  We enjoyed a beautiful sunrise, and were off an running early Wednesday morning. Good bye, St. Augustine!  We promise to explore you on our way back up north, in a month! We had a wonderful, sunny day, traveling through the Intracoastal. Now, I know you guys think that all I do is sit in the sun, and read a book all day, but NO! I am the NAVIGATOR, helping us stay in the deeper-water-channel, by helping spot red (on the right) & green (on the left) markers. It's a rough job, but somebody has to do it.   I also report up-coming bridges. Here is one of the many incredible bridges we traveled under! Beautiful and amazing mosaics --- As we near some of the bridges, we have to hail the bridge-tender and wait for a lift, as Zingara is 24 feet tall, and can't go under all the bridges.  It was sunny and warm, but windy, up on the flyi...

Before we left Jacksonville, we had one last dinner out.  We went to Carmines Pie House , not far from St. Vincent's Hospital.  Now, THAT'S a PIE!  ..... and we're off!   Finally! We left Ortega Landing with beautiful weather and the travel-bug in our hearts. Good bye, Marina at Ortega Landing! We traveled back up the St. John's River, back towards Jacksonville. The view of Jacksonville in the distance, through an opened Bascule Bridge. After we stopped along the river to get fuel, we hailed another Grand Banks Power Cruiser, motoring by.  He was a seasoned sailor of this area.  Since the weather was so great, and winds were calm, we decided to join this other boat out into the ocean, instead of staying in the Intracoastal.  Heading out into the Atlantic Ocean! In the open water, we were able to make up a lot of time; we even skipped spending a overnight in Jacksonville Beach, and continued down to St. Augu...