We escaped the trains! Night one of our time in Florida (save for our Naples sojourn) to sleep without the feeling that a 45-car freight train isn’t bearing down upon my pillow; I’m far more excited about it than anyone else. I didn’t realize that those things had so intensely become my nemeses.
We are in a gorgeous ‘bulb’ off of the ICW called Peck Lake, and Florida has never looked so good: the still sweetness of mangroves and palms, only a few other boats in the anchorage, a dinghy hop to shore to sneak under an arbor of sea grape to the expanse of white sand beaches, and did I mention that I haven’t heard a train?
We arrived here this afternoon after a beautiful and uneventful trip from Stuart. We wove our way out of the St. Lucie inlet under a constant stream of private jets (who are all of those people?!) and past their mansions (seriously, WHO?! The locale just doesn’t make sense to us..) to enter the Intercoastal and to ‘hang a right’. We saw a pod of dolphins, osprey, and plenty of herons, egrets and goofy-as-ever pelicans. (Fun fact: a pelican can hold up to 3 gallons of water in its pouch, if need be.) The best part of our fairly short journey is that the water has shifted from the molasses ick of the Okeechobee waterway to water clear enough to -gasp- see through! At least down to the third rung of our swim ladder, which seems like a huge step in the right direction.
As it turns out, Violet simply needs a stack of paper and a pair of scissors to make her world go round, so she spent the travel time down below mincing construction paper into a lot of little pieces that all have detailed meaning and specific purpose. She came above to explain each intracacy as we were bopping about getting ready to set the anchor, a distraction not necessarily welcome but at least we now all know how to get to Cheetah’s house and all about the new garland she’s stringing.
Upon arrival we yipped with glee at our surroundings, jumped into Flipper (surprise! the dinghy’s been named) and headed ashore.
Afternoon on the beach, sun showers on deck, a perfect sunset, a delicious dinner and a game of travel Monopoly with the smallest bills I have ever seen, and like that, we’re toast. ‘Til tomorrow!
The distant rumble of trains and their melancholic whistles across the land and water always captures my imagination and at times has transported me to a far off locale. Kind of like the place you Allens are in right now.
Has Chickadee become a “hotspot” so that you’ll be able to magically connect to the Internet whilst at sea? If so, no one will have to go days at a time without another chapter of Salvio Sails.
We’re looking forward to another paragraph or more of Lily’s really fine writing. You go girl!
Heaven!
Heaven. Checking out Google Earth to find you guys, it’s so easy to stalk you with this blog info…
Celine Dion owns one of the larger houses in the area…
So does Tiger, Rory McIlroy, Howard Stern, Michael Jordan, and other such fancy folks- we googled while we motored by!