Lake Santa Babs to Lake Peck (near Stuart), anchor

Up and out early today. We wanted to get this land-o-people behind us a bit, and than meant going through a bunch of bridges. The first one opened at 7 am, and we made sure we caught it.

The morning was cloudy and windy as promised. We even had a good deluge to cruise through. But eventually the skies cleared and the remainder of the day was sunny. Still breezy.

As was true yesterday, we almost had the waterways to ourselves until noon-ish. Then there were boats everywhere. 

Palm Beach!

What's irksome about that is none of them know how to boat. For example, at one point a tow, just a single barge, was moving south on the ICW. He had a bridge hold open so he could easily pass through, which is understandable. Meanwhile, 3 zippy boats whooshed passed us and slowed at that bridge, because they are required to do so. But 1 of them, a teeny, tiny, bimini-topped runabout, headed straight for the tow going the other way. Never made an effort to move either, taking the attitude they had as much right to the water as the tow did. Firstly, it's a commercial vessel, so no, he has the right of way. Secondly, he's bigger than you, so he has the right of way. And thirdly, he doesn't maneuver as quickly as you can so, you bozo, he has the right of way. The tow never blew his horn, but really should have. We did hear him apologize to the bridge (who held up traffic all the time this game of chicken was going on) for taking so long "but there was a boat in the way." He had to come to almost a complete stop to avoid a collision.

This home stood out on the ICW. It looks more
like a ski chalet than a Florida home.
Zoom in to see the icicle gingerbread!

We've anchored at Peck Lake before, last year. It's another popular place, always filled with boats, but we managed to squeeze up close to land and out of the way. Due to the solid winds we feel good about our location. But if the wind blew hard from the west, we never would have picked it.

We officially completed our travels around Florida's tip today. From Naples all around to West Palm Beach was new travel for us. What's to come we've done a number of times now. There won't be a lot of new stuff until we get to the Hudson River. That's gonna be a while.