This is more of a social commentary, then a post about our sailing trip. So if you don’t want to read it, just stop after the next paragraph.

So we stayed in Sebastian for a while, stopped in Vero Beach for 2 days. Vero is a nice place to stop, because they have a city run mooring field. Usually government run projects are not run well, but I have to say, that most of the city run marinas and moorings are very nice, and Vero is no exception. They have a dinghy dock, laundry, lounge with WIFI, and there are free city buses that pick you up right there. It is definitely a convenient cruiser stop. After Vero we went to Fort Pierce, and ended up having to stay 2 extra days. I was looking in the cockpit locker and saw a black water mark coming from our engine exhaust. So I had to replace the hose. Luckily the dockmaster at the marina offered us a ride to west marine to pick it up. So the next day I had to do some  spelunking into the locker and the engine compartment. I basically had to fold myself in half to get to the hose in the engine compartment, at one point I thought I might not be able to get out, I was jammed into the compartment so well… It took about 2 hours. Also I noticed the fuel lift pump had a little leak, but I could not get the part there, so we decided to get it later. So we left for Lake Werth, aka North Palm Beach.

This is were the social commentary starts… There is a huge anchorage there. It took a good 9-10 hours, so the first night we stayed on the boat. The next we went to some stores, and the market, and ate out for dinner. We decided to stay one more day, and go to the beach. So we packed our backpack, got our beach umbrella, and put on our swim suits. We rowed over to the “Dinghy Dock”, which is really a little sandy area under a little road bridge. It looks horrible, and there are messages spray painted on the walls “High theft area”. Some one setup a cable to lock your dinghy to. It does not give you a very welcoming feeling. So we looked on google maps, and it showed that we were around 1 mile from the beach. We had our trash from the boat that we wanted to dispose of, and the temperature was in the high 80′s with no wind. We started walking, and we kept walking, and walking… On either side of the road were very high thick hedges so you could not see through, and on the other side of the hedges were large pointed fences. Then we came up to a private gated communtiy, with a security gaurd. A little farther up, a sign says “Danger Guard Dogs”, this is all for the same gated community. We walked about 2 miles, and finally a sign read “John D. Macaurthur Park”. So we thought we were close, so we kept walking, and walking, and finally we looked at google maps on our phone, and it showed that the beach was parrallel to the road we were on, and it would be about another 3 miles before the road converged with the beach. So we figured the only way to the beach is through the gated community. And you are not allowed in the gated community, so effectively they own the beach. I had always thought that no one owned the beach, that it was there for all to enjoy, not just the super wealthy, and I thought that they must have some way to get to the beach. So we walked back, with our trash in hand, sweating profusely, and stopped to talk to the guard at the gated community. He said “yeah the beach is just down there a half a mile, but that is for the residents only.” So I asked what was the closest way to the beach and he said that we had to go to the park. So even though the beach was around a half a mile away from us, we would have to walk around 5 miles to get to it, EACH WAY. Needless to say I was pretty angry and upset that this would be allowed in the land of the free, where all people are suppose to be equal. This seemed like we were back several hundred years during the times of nobles and peasants.  I don’t think this kind of thing would go over well in New Jersey, and in fact many states like California and Hawaii have had cases like this go to court and usually the people win over the landowner who wants to own the beach. All over the world, in general beaches have always been available for all to use, but I guess the residents at the “Lost Tree Club” feel that they deserve to own the beach, and keep out anyone that is not wealthy enough to afford these mansions.

There is not much more to say about the topic, but if I was a resident of this area, which I never will be, I would definitely take this up to the courts, although the people living there probably bought the judges off.

On a happier note, we left North Palm Beach, although it was not easy. We had winds of 15-20MPH against us, and a tide of a half a knot against, while trying to go to Lantana. We probably averaged 4 knots to make the 18 miles, but we were running the engine at around 2,300. We had an exciting docking experience in Lantana. We called ahead and the told us to go into slip 27. So at first I went up to the dock area and circled around, trying to get an idea of where they wanted us, and which way we would be docking. The wind was very strong, and docks are close together so you don’t have much room to manuever. So I couldn’t tell where we were suppose to go, so I decided to just go for it. As we were coming in the depth sounder rang at 7 foot. It rings for about 5 seconds and then stops. But I was in the marina, so I figured it would be deep enough, and I was more worried about where to dock and the wind. So we start going down the aisle of slips, I didn’t see any numbers, so we kept going, and we saw a boater and yelled to him, asking where 27 was, right then we came to a stop, we were on the bottom. I tried reversing, but we were not moving. The slip was one behind us, so if some one from the marina was there, we would have been fine. The boater informed us that is was an extra low tide. So Nadia rowed 2 lines over on the Dinghy and tied them to pilings, and after about 10 minutes on the winches we were floating again. We got into the slip without much fuss. So we are docked here and the fuel pump should be here tomorrow. We plan on breaking the next 35 miles to Fort Lauderdale into two days, since there are about 20 bridges. Then we plan to stay in Fort Lauderdale for a little while.

Boats at Anchor near Lake Werth Inlet

Ridiculous Mega Yachts