West Palm Beach to Jupiter

A shorter run today.   We watched church online and then cruised up the sound past the Palm Beach cut and into the Indian River.  

It was time to get some fuel so we stopped and filled up both fuel and water.  It's funny we can go a long time on fuel but water is always in shortage.  I see why the big yachts have water makers that filter the salt out of the water...

4.14 a gallon for diesel (3.90 plus local tax).  Not too bad.   It's the quantity that's a problem, not the price.....  This was our first fill up of both fuel and water since leaving Marathon. 

We meandered through another 1,000 or 2,000 expensive houses.   I'm not quite sure what these people do for a living.  In order to figure that out I at least had to look up one of them.  This boat had the name Rock Stars.  

At first I thought it might be a musician.  It turns out the boat and house are owned by the people who created Rockstar energy drink.  Apparently they sell a lot of energy drinks ..

We also cruised past Anna Murdoch's yacht.  Anna is the first wife of Rupert Murdoch and mother to his three children that now run the Fox, Sky News, and News Corp businesses.

Not bad for the daughter of an Estonian Scottish tailor....

   

I had the privilege to work with some of their companies for 30 plus years.  We made a lot of video boxes and DVD / Blu-ray packaging for them over the years...

Her boat actually has a story behind it.  It was originally purchased by Mr Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's father-in-law.  It was called The Miss Ghislaine (after Jeffery Epstein's wife) until Mr Maxwell drowned swimming alongside the boat.  It was then sold to the Murdoch family.  

Here's a shot of some of the scenery we had to drive past today...  It's a rough neighborhood...  

Eventually we found ourselves in Jupiter Florida.    Jupiter is where things start to feel a little bit more normal.  Here we saw houses that were 'spring lake' sized.    Now I realize some of the biggest houses in West Michigan are on Spring Lake but that's just a comparable... 

This is one of our boat neighbors where we are anchored.   I'm thinking they have a lot of fun on this pontoon boat...  

At first we decided to anchor in the anchorage here which was very full of sailboats and old beat up powerboats.  

Tide plus wind doesn't make for easy anchoring and we quickly ended up on a sand bar and against the anchor rope of the boat next to us.  I tried to use the dingy to pull us off but was having limited success.  We were putting on a show for everyone around.  I guess it's a good thing I'm not easily embarrassed....  

Eventually, one of the other boats in the anchorage offered to help us because they had much bigger motors.  It also helps that they knew the bottom and they knew where we could get away with anchoring.  They pulled us off the sand bar, we pulled both anchors and then dropped them again over in front of the courtesy docks.  Apparently we can't use the courtesy docks but they can't do anything to us if we are anchored offshore ..  so that's where we spend the night tonight.  Both bow and stern anchors are in place.   

There isn't much wake (waves) here or very much wind but there is a lot of current from the tide.    I trust however both anchors will  hold and since we're tied front and rear we should just slide back and forth on the ropes pulling us sideways north and south 30 feet or less...

Once we got everything situated (and I'm actually glad no one took pictures) it was time to get ashore.  Katie has been getting more than a little stir crazy trapped on a boat with me for days and days.  

I know I'm an enchanting personality and all she needs (haha) but I want to do what makes her happy so we took the dinghy around Burt Reynolds Park (Yes that Burt Reynolds, The one born in Lansing Michigan but who lived here once he was famous and wealthy and died here...)

Burt Reynolds Park is a big island and there is all kinds of stuff in Jupiter around the island.   We found a nice dinghy dock and tied up and went to a restaurant right on the water for dinner...  

The restaurant is called Guanabanas and it's huge and had a 45 minute wait at 3pm on a Sunday.    A good time with live music, Cuban food and a beautiful tiki bar type environment.  

After eating dinner it was time for a long walk.  The downtown Jupiter area has gentrified beautifully and it's a cool little town.  

There are a bunch of parks with beautiful scenery and walking paths.  

It was almost exactly a low tide but the swimming areas are pretty cool also..  

After walking a couple of miles it was time for the mandatory ice cream stop.   We haven't had much ice cream on this trip and I was having a big craving....  

Yes the flavor was as big as the straw...  A lot of places in Florida use paper straws and it's really annoying.  This straw was a glorious delight.  Who would think that a straw would make me happy?

It did...

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that a  hammer head shark tried to eat Katie's head...  

We finished our evening with a dingy ride around the Burt Reynolds island and did some sightseeing around some of the other natural islands in the area.  Some of them are parks with picnic benches and only accessible by boat.  One even has a really tight little channel that only a dinghy could get into (pictured above).  

Apparently it's even possible to dingy to the shopping mall and the movie theater here....  It's interesting how quiet the main road is here in town.  At first I thought there was a lack of traffic because there weren't many people but everything is full.  It turns out highway A1A (which is the main highway all the way down to Key West on the ocean) is closed just north of town because the bridge is out and they're building a big new bridge.  I didn't get a picture of it today maybe I will tomorrow on the way out.   The budgets for bridges in Florida are absolutely huge....

Here's the trip for today...  It's a really short one.  16 miles today and nearly all in a no wake zone...