Palm Beach, home of the big kids

It’s Monday morning and we are in West Palm Beach where we will spend a few days seeing the sights and decompressing from what seemed like an endless number of “to do’s” aboard Pandora.  With most of the packages we have ordered waiting for us here with my friend Linda, who we hope to see later today, or in Ft Lauderdale at our favorite UPS store, we finally feel like things are settling down a bit.   There’s plenty more to do to prepare for our run to the Bahamas and on to Cuba but the “heavy lifting” is about done so we can relax a bit.

The last few days since leaving Ft Pierce have been fairly routine as we motored down the ICW on our way south to Ft Lauderdale where we will stage Pandora and prepare for our crossing to the Bahamas.   We did have a “fun” moment though in the middle of the night on Friday when we dragged our anchor during a thunderstorm.  When we anchored earlier that evening I did feel that the bottom seemed very soft and that the anchor didn’t set quite as well as I had hoped. Perhaps I should have anchored once more, but we backed down and I assumed that it was “good enough”.  Not…

Anyway, we both enjoyed a late night “BVD Shuffle” as we dragged around the harbor and re-anchored two times till I sort of “got it right”.    Even then I didn’t feel that the holding was all that good.  However, with shallow water all around us there wasn’t much risk in damage to anything beyond my ego and our “marital bliss”.  No, Brenda didn’t enjoy it at all.

Happily, the holding here in Palm Beach is great so we are all snug.  And, that’s a good thing as the current whips through on the ebb and flood with the tides so the anchor has to reset ever 7 or so hours with the current switches.

West Palm is a beautiful city with a dramatic skyline and wonderful restaurants.  It’s also a short walk to the grocery.  And, perhaps best of all, they seem to like cruisers as there are two huge and very nice public docks to land a dink on.  Given how unfriendly the cities in South Florida are, it’s refreshing to be well treated here.   And, as an added benefit, there aren’t any derelict boats so clearly the city is enforcing the laws to keep the waters uncluttered and leave room, and the welcome mat out, for visiting boaters.

When we arrived yesterday there was a car show in full swing with literally hundreds of fabulous cars, mostly on the exotic side.     Of course, who doesn’t like a “fleet” of Vets?  I know that my son Rob would love this show. And, of course, what about your “inner Bond”?  You can look, but don’t touch. Most of the cars were exotic sports cars but this “Big Healy” was one of my favorite.  The owner spent six years restoring it himself.  He rescued it when he found that it was being towed to the dump as a total wreck.  Pretty impressive car and in perfect shape.  I’d love to have one of these, and it’s the PERFECT color.  Wow!If I could have whatever I wanted, this Jaguar would be perfect.   Elegant and in mint condition.
Of course, there were plenty of “super cars” for those who want to make a statement, perhaps, “mine is bigger than yours, much bigger”.   Brenda would say that cars like this make up for something else?  Hmm…  Glad that I don’t want one. Well, I don’t want one really badly.  Yeah, that’s it. One way or the other, there was certainly something for everyone at this show.  Well, at least everyone with at least $100k to spend on a toy.  But hey, we are in Florida and that’s where the money goes to be spent in the winter.

There are plenty of massive homes and boats along the way and it’s clear that to live here you have to have plenty of “green” and be very willing to spend it.

Oh yeah, a cold front came through last night and it was in the 40s when we got up. It’l go up to the low 70s later today so don’t feel so bad for us.  Not that you do…

Stay tuned, more to come and I promise that it will include boats next post.   Honest!

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