FORTY NINE BRIDGES

On Thursday February 27th we departed Vero Beach full of fuel, food and fun, happy faces! From Vero to Key Biscayne we have to go under or wait for an opening of 49 bridges. The days are long especially if we have to wait up to 30 minutes for a bridge to open for us. Night one anchoring was at Hobe Sound and the second was West Palm area. The weather was chilly, see Paul! We stayed 2 nights in Ft Lauderdale downtown. It is noisy and crowded but we needed to go and enjoy a couple of meals out before we leave. 

Mile markers of some of the Florida bridges. We keep track as some we can get under if our antennas are down. I keep notes to help us the following year. 

South of Miami we got fuel. This above photo shows how boats are stored. You are the owner, you call ahead and a forklift will bring your boat down and put in the water for you. I always find this amazing. 

Some cool watercraft sitting up on the boat lifts at houses in the canals here in Florida. Some like to go fast!!

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Tuesday we travelled to Bimini, we usually would not go out and cross the Gulf Stream when they say 2-3 foot waves BUT we have spent money and lots of time installing stabilizers. We turned them on and went through the Key Biscayne Cut. Yes, we know when they say 2-3 feet waves we are to add those numbers together and that is the real number out in the big big water. Yes, indeed there were some large ones out there. The stabilizers worked fine! See below the chart plotter. We want to go where the green line is but with waves, current and wind our boat had to travel and self correct and go in the direction of the red line. 

Bimini to Chub Cay is our longest day of 10 hours of actually nothing but blue waters 360. No islands, no land in view and actually no other boats in sight except little dots in the distance. We left at sunrise. Cool picture of that below as the humidity was 90% that morning. 

After travelling over 300 nautical miles from Vero Beach, we are now actually stuck outside of Nassau because of extreme high winds and waves. We are comfortable but "inside the boat" kind of days right now. It is very noisy and rocky outside on the decks. We have guests arriving mid-March so off to Exumas as soon as weather cooperates. 

Our view a couple of nights ago.
Yes, It's Better In The Bahamas. We are so grateful to be able to do this. We appreciate every day.