04 January 2007

Meow meow, MEOW! (part 2)

Greetings from purgatory. Yes, I was able to get my mitts on the computer again while they were motoring through bumpy seas. Didn’t they know I was trying to get my daily 23 and 1/2 hours of beauty rest? Oh well, at least I get a chance to vent my many frustrations. They’ve taken to locking up my food by duct taping the locker shut, which seems very inefficient since I was doing a very good job at opening the lockers and feeding myself before. I’m still very hungry all the time and seem to get in a lot of trouble when I decide to enrich my diet with calcium from the stick of butter that is sometimes left unattended. If my food woes aren’t enough to keep me unhappy, we spent the last week in the company of two, yes TWO, dogs and a cat. Humph. The dogs seemed to be rather unthreatening and stupid (typical canines), but the cat, however, was much larger and male and had a way of yelling at me that I did not appreciate. The only good thing that has happened in the past week, is that they have decided to leave the boat open while they are away so I can explore my dominion as I wish. They are threatening me with an ocean passage but the only way this furry body is crossing any oceans is in first class on a 747. Negotiations are underway. Please, if you get this message, send food. I’m hungry.

Palm Beach, Florida

January 4, 2007

Greetings from Palm Beach, Florida! We’ve made it to our jumping-off point for the Bahamas after a full day of motoring from Fort Pierce. Since we have a shallow draft, we were able to anchor in a spot which doesn’t seem to be used by other people, but is perfect for us. There are a couple sandy beach areas to dock the dinghy, and it is only a couple blocks from the Post Office and the downtown Palm Beach area. Today’s trip was rather rough as we were motoring directly into 10+ knot winds with an opposing current, creating rough seas. Our trusty Beta engine, Boris, kept on chugging and we arrived in Palm Beach shortly after 5PM. Snow Day will be a couple days behind us as they weren’t entirely ready to leave Vero Beach yesterday, but we’ll all meet up again in Palm Beach in a couple days. Our trip today took us through highly developed portions of the waterway with massive houses and equally impressive yards and boats docked alongside. The boat traffic picked up and we had to contend with the wakes of many passing and overtaking powerboats and “mega-yachts.” We also passed under at least five opening bridges which was tricky at times with the strong currents and heavy boat traffic. We’ll make a run to the PO tomorrow and start our preparations for the Bahamas!



Here is a selection of monstrous homes (and a yacht) along the Florida ICW








The lighthouse at Jupiter Inlet


Kristen on our new ratlines

KitKat hard at work

Kristen hard at work (at making the new ratlines)

Sunset in Palm Beach, FL