It was a wonderful time with family and friends. Spending Thanksgiving with Carlene, Brian and Jessica was a real treat -  and how great to sit down to a dinner with vegetables Maggie remembered from childhood (turnip and carrots). We each had our own pie, which was barely touched after being so full from all the other goodies. We went back a few days later for the leftovers and a game of Rummikub - truly a family Thanksgiving! THANK YOU, Carlene and Brian! On Saturday, Maggie went shopping with Carlene and Jessica at the outlet stores in Vero - to do the girl thing was a blast, but really hard not to buy. That space limitation thing on the boat. And later in the day, Jim and Joanna came to move the boat over to Dick and Carol's dock. Maggie had the shopping bug, so talked Joanna into going to the art and craft show downtown ... Jim and Bob moved SeaTryst . We love staying at the Tuschick's, but Maggie is a nervous nelly watching Rosie watch the land! She got off the boat a few times, and scurried back when she was found. We did find one thing to keep her happy on the boat (Bob, too). While at their house, Bob had chores to do, using Dick's vast assortment of tools. One was to refinish the table in the main salon. Our mainsail's MackPack manufacturer is in Stuart, and since we'd never really had it working right, we called them. Travis came over the next day and tweaked our setup, tightened lines, and gave us advice on how to use it. It looks better; let's hope it works better! We provisioned on Wednesday - buying more than $500 worth of food, lots of meat that we vacuum-sealed into smaller packages and froze in Carol's freezer. We were grateful to Carlene for loaning us her car the whole time we were in Stuart. With Bob's projects (fancy new fuel filter system for the engine, too), he made lots and lots of trips to Home Depot and Lowe's. Thursday was more shopping (we'll really be glad to leave this part behind!), lunch with Joanna and Carol (Jim and Dick left Tuesday to deliver a boat from Annapolis to Stuart), and our goodbye to Carlene and Brian. The only thing that made it easier to handle was the margaritas she brought to the boat. Camp Carol also welcomed friends Marcia and Charlie Corbett on FriendShip, a 48' Krogen - talk about a boat! A daily ritual at Camp Carol is to show up in their house at about 8:00a with our coffee in hand and sea stories to swap - sometimes for hours! We enjoyed our morning visit so much, we got underway a little later than we had expected on Friday morning. We should have stayed longer - if we had waited for the tide to rise, we might not have run aground at the canal entrance. No worries here - we weren't going to leave a wake - we were hard on the bottom! We were finally - really - underway at about 10:30, on our way to Lake Worth. Wait, no, our friends there insist we have it wrong - we are really in North Palm Beach, not Lake Worth. (It's only the chart that shows the body of water as Lake Worth - We'll have to tell MapTech.) We purchased headsets, called "Marriage Savers" so we can talk to each other while anchoring. We thought we'd made the investment to save the marriage before it even gets started! This avoids yelling when Bob is at the bow and Maggie at the helm. Friends Roger and Fern Tausig came to visit for one night. We picked them up at the nearby Publix shopping center, brought them back to the boat, hauled the dinghy, and got underway for a 3-hour ride to Peck Lake to spend the night. This is a spot where you can walk on a short path and get to the ocean. A beautiful and relaxing evening. One of the interesting parts of their visit was getting 6'7" Roger into a 6'7" V-berth bed. He managed the tight squeeze, as long as he pulled his knees in. After breakfast in the cockpit, we were underway at 9:30 for motoring back to Lake Worth -- oops, North Palm Beach -- where they had left a car. When one of the 7 bridges was opening for us, the bridge tender notified us that there was an accident on the bridge and we'd have to wait until it was cleared and an engineer had inspected the bridge. Not knowing how long this would take, we pondered alternatives to get Roger and Fern back to their car, and then on to their flight, all the while singing "a 3-hour tour...." Fortunately, the whole thing took only 40 minutes and we were back underway. As we approached the anchorage, Fern called to confirm their flight - only to learn it was cancelled due to snow and ice in the northeast. So hard to imagine as we sat in tank tops and shorts. They got to stay an extra night! For the next three days, Maggie did not leave the boat. With work projects to keep her busy, and boat projects to keep Bob busy (except for his walk to West Marine!), we enjoyed our quiet space on the boat. Besides, a cold front came through and it got chilly - down to the 60s at night. We were not bored here - we saw flying dinghies (didn't grab the camera fast enough!), helicopters landing on mega-yachts, and a beautiful iguana. We met up with friends Mike and Sandy for dinner at Duffy's, in between their boat deliveries. And then Friday night had dinner at Seasons 52 to celebrate Maggie's birthday. On Monday, December 10, we left to go to Ft Lauderdale - we went outside to the ocean to avoid more than 20 bridge openings along the ICW. We got to try the mainsail and it worked well. The wind was East 15-20, we had 4-6' rolling seas forward of the beam. It was our first time as a sailboat this season. The jib's roller furling had disconnected, so Bob had to go forward to roll it in by hand. What a tough job, made harder since Maggie had difficulty holding SeaTryst into the wind. After several moments of fear for her, and exhaustion for Bob, we had the sails down and headed into Ft Lauderdale channel. We decided to anchor in Middle River - where we found 6 other boats, all Canadian. We felt like foreigners! Bob has lots of boat projects and needed West Marine - again - and we learned one was within walking distance. Off we went - and there we also discovered a Post Office, a French bakery, and a laundromat along the way. And then we found a huge mall one block the other way. Wow - we can live in style here. Maggie needed a new satellite phone, since Globalstar has lost satellites and is not expected to be operational for years. She called a dealer in Ft Lauderdale, and it turns out he is in an office building within sight of the boat. After meeting with Andy at Explorer Satellite Communications on Thursday, we went back on Friday to purchase an Iridium phone and antenna. Now another boat project for Bob. One of the reasons we came to Ft Lauderdale was for the lighted boat parade - reported to be the largest in the world. We'll leave here and head to Miami and wait for Pat and Larry to arrive for Christmas week. Time is flying -- soon we'll be making our way to the Western Caribbean.    Home