November 18-21 Last Boat Journeys

On Friday, Nov. 18, we decided to stay one more night at Vero and get some boat projects done. We changed the oil, and cleaned the raw water filter. Both jobs were needed and the weather was not a good traveling day as the winds were up and the skies were very overcast.
Saturday, Nov. 19, we departed Vero at 7:00 and traveled 62 miles to North Lake Worth anchorage. Great place to anchor with many other boats. Weather was beautiful all day and temperatures were in the mid seventies.
Sunday, November 20 at 7:00, we departed our anchorage with two Canadian sailboats and headed south for Ft. Lauderdale. What a beautiful day on the water! The temp was probably in the eighties. We had a tiring day as we had to wait for bridges with many other boats all day. Most of the bascule bridges have certain times they open and if you are not right there, you have to wait for 30 minutes to 1 hour for the next opening. We had to go through 20 of these bridges today. What a pain! We made it to Ft. Lauderdale at 4:15 pm and anchored in the Middle River anchorage. What a nice place to anchor. We followed the Canadian boats there and we were impressed. We will definitely stay there again.
Monday, November, 21, we pulled anchor at 7:15 am and headed out the Inlet at Ft. Lauderdale for the ocean voyage to Miami. We were by ourselves as the other couples had to go to the bank before leaving that morning and they were staying in Miami until they could get a weather window to the Bahamas. Boy! We had a rocky, rolling time on the big open seas. The winds were up and it was a rocky ride all 59 miles to Miami. We were moving along the coastline and were about 10 miles out so we still could see the big Condos on the beaches. We decided we had had enough and went into the Governments Cut at 12:30 and continued our journey down south through Florida’s Biscayne Bay. This was a much better ride for the both of us. We arrived inside Pumpkin Key at 5: oo pm and anchored for the night in front of some nice homes along the waters edge. We had a very nice quiet night and got some much needed rest. Nelson and I are traveling alone now and are still enjoying our trip together.