Lyn's Log, 12th April 2007
Florida

Vero Beach, Florida.
N23º05', W82º30'
13,616 miles.

On Thursday 29th March we motored north inside the outer reef of the Florida Keys, planning to head for Fort Pierce. But the weather changed again with strong headwinds winds forecast. By evening we saw half a dozen yachts anchored off the small island called Rodriguez Key. We decided to join them and had a good night’s sleep, leaving early in the morning to continue motoring northwards inside the reef to Miami. This worked well and we were able to enter the main channel at Miami with time to make our way round to anchor in Biscayne Bay near the Sea-quarium.

The next day we managed to get some more food supplies and visited the Sea-quarium. It is one of biggest of its kind, with different pools for dolphins, sea lions, manatees, crocodiles, turtles, sharks and reef fish. The highlight is the performance of the Orca whale in the main pool (see pic).

Then it was off again out of Miami and into the Gulf Stream for an 18-hour passage to Fort Pierce. Local marinas were too shallow for us, so we carried on northwards along the Intracoastal Waterway to the next town of Vero Beach and got a ‘dock slip’ at the City Marina. It was reasonably cheap there and we hired a car for a week.

Andrew was having trouble where he had his tooth extracted. We found a dentist near the supermarket and spent two long mornings having some serious work done. We did a fair amount of shopping, visited the beach, and spent the Easter weekend with Andrew’s aunt Heidi in Naples.

Not far from Naples we took an airboat ride through the mangrove swamps. As we arrived we watched a manatee and baby swimming down the drainage canal. The boat ride was quite fun but there was very little water due to the lack of rain, and at one point we were completely spattered in mud! Ten miles from this location we took a boardwalk through the glades at a nature reserve. There was a baby bald-headed eagle in its nest, stretching its wings as if it would be off soon. It was pretty much full size, and the nest was enormous. At the far end of the boardwalk was a small pond with two large alligators lying on the mud at its edge, and several small alligators in the water. We had a much better view of a large alligator when we came back nearly to the gate. Where before there was a shallow stagnant pool covered by duck-weed, there was an alligator stirring up the chocolate coloured water as he searched out and snapped at catfish. He wasn’t interested in coming out of the water for the people who were taking pictures.