Feb. 20 - Jacksonville, FL

Ortega River Marina

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” —Dr. Seuss

We've been in Jacksonville for a week staying busy visiting with friends, meeting new friends, working on the boat and eating.

Our local friends, Barbara and David, told us about a great place to eat. Definitely not a fancy place, but the food was outstanding. Southern Charm is a down home joint run by a local character and chef that personally greets each guest as they enter his little diner. The place is only open a few hours each day for lunch and then again a few hours for dinner. Friday was his shrimp and fish buffet. Along with the main course we had some of the best sides I've ever eaten...mac and cheese, potato salad, coleslaw, collard greens, fried green tomatoes, cheesy grits and cinnamon rolls. Art "Cracker" does all the cooking, he hollers "shrimp up" or "fish up" when each batch is done and his staff brings plates of fresh food to your table as long as you want to keep eating. We were as full as two little ticks when we left.

One of the things we've always enjoyed in Jacksonville is the Riverside Arts Market...a nice combination of farm fresh items, crafts, music and food. It's located near a neighbor called Five Points under the I95 bridge. Today was a beautiful day to spend at the market, along with the normal vendors the market was hosting a chili cook off. There were twenty five booths filled with free samples of chili and cornbread with all the fixings. The sample cups looked small, but after tasting every contestant's chili, a few pieces of cornbread and a couple of cookies for dessert we were stuffed.

Art busy cooking up fresh shrimp, fish and green tomatoes

This was my plate after going through the line...

then they start bringing you plates of fish and shrimp.

The Riverside Art Market

Vendors of all kinds...

and lots of good food too.

A few of the beautiful winter vegetables 

I think these may be the largest shrimp I've ever seen. The lady told us the red ones taste like lobster. 

The view from the market

The Chili Cook-Off

Feb. 17 - Jacksonville, FL

Ortega River Marina

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow" —Lin Yutang

It felt like coming home when we came through Jacksonville...we spent a lot of time here in 2014. Hopefully this visit won't be as long, but it is a good place to catch up with friends and do a little work on the boat. It's also a great place to leave the boat when we go back to Texas for a visit. It's a straight shot down I10 from here to Houston and then south. We've made that trip 23 times in the last five years.

We don't know exactly when we'll go home, probably next week when we've had time to put a coat of Cetol Gloss on the bright work and when we've had time to visit with friends we haven't seen in a couple of years. The cruising world gets smaller and smaller the longer you're involved in it. We saw friends in almost every city we visited on the way north this month. It's always fun to catch up with old friends and make a few new ones.

Jacksonville will be our home for the next 6 weeks or so...we plan to stay in Texas until after Easter and then slowly head north the first part of April. We are looking forward to crossing the Florida/Georgia state line...we've been in Florida for two years. Definitely time for a little new scenery and more adventures.

Old friends from Charleston...Sandy, Rickey, Maryann, George, Susie and Stan

The Pearl's home for the next 6 weeks

The marina's new deck, pool and bathhouse

The view from the marina's new deck area...overlooking the docks.

Stan touched up some of the worse spots before we put a coat of Cetol Gloss on all the teak.

View from the flybridge at sunset

The baskets I've been working on this winter. This one is 8" across and about 3" high

This cute little one has a lid and is 4" across and a little less than 2" high.  

Feb. 10 – Cocoa, FL

Indian River – Anchorage

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” ―Cesare Pavese

Just a quick update to the blog to let everyone know where we are…life isn’t very exciting at the moment. We spent Tuesday in Vero Beach, it was cooler and windier than Monday, so we were glad we had spent Monday wandering through the beach area. Tuesday we took advantage of the local bus and went to Publix, had lunch and did a little shopping. Before returning to the boat we visited with friends that are docked at the marina. We spent the rest of the day hiding on the boat from high winds and cold temperatures. We have to keep reminding ourselves we’re in south Florida.

Today we moved north to Cocoa, which is a cute town we enjoyed visiting in 2011, but today we decided against going ashore. The high winds and cold temperature makes a ride in the dinghy very uncomfortable. In fact we spent most of the day driving from the lower helm so we could stay out of the wind and stay warm. Kind of fun for a change, but we both would enjoy a warm day…at least the sun has been out and that helps. This summer when it’s hot, I hope we remember these days.

Feb. 8 - Vero Beach, FL

Fritz Island - Anchorage

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

One of the things we enjoy most while cruising is finding small local places to eat or visit where we can talk with locals or just watch the world go by. While we were in Ft. Pierce yesterday, we found the Sailfish Brewing Company, not far from the marina, which had a nice selection of locally brewed beer. Another place we love in Ft. Pierce is the Importico's Bakery. It's a nice place to enjoy a relaxing breakfast and a great cup of coffee. We usually like sitting at one of their sidewalk tables where we can watch the town begin to wake up, but today it was just too cold to enjoy that.

The day warmed up quickly with winds far less than there were on Sunday, so we had a nice short cruise to Vero Beach. We've been cruising the east coast for five years and this is the first time we've stopped in Vero. It's a popular place with cruisers because everything you need is easily accessible and everyone is so friendly. They have a wonderful free bus system that takes you anywhere you need to go. Some refer to this area as Velcro Beach, because cruisers pull in for a few days and just can't seem to leave...we'll see what happens. We plan to stay a few days to relax, provision and visit with some friends.

Sailfish Brewing Co.

A glass of Lone Friar and White Marlin

Importico's Bakery

OK...this is a little too cold for winter in Florida.

The winds were so high on Sunday we had white caps in the ICW

Vero Beach

The sunsets have been amazing lately

Feb. 6 - Moving North and Cold Fronts

Lake Worth - Anchorage

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.” - Rabindranath Tagore

We stayed in Dania Beach on Friday hiding out from another front that blew in during the night. Friday was another cold wintery day in south Florida. We've seen too many of those this year...and a stronger front is coming in tonight.

Saturday started out cloudy but turned into a wonderful day, boats of all sizes were everywhere and people were on their decks enjoying the warm sun. The Miami Boat Show starts next week so we saw A LOT of large yachts being moved that way. We traveled over fifty miles today through the land of excess...mega mansions and mega yachts. The economy here seems to be doing great because in every open spot new construction is going up. Travel through the ICW in this area is slow but very entertaining.

The sun breaking through the clouds...we left early this morning so we could get out of our slip at high tide.

You can see why we needed to leave at high tide...this picture was taken Friday at low tide. 

We spotted six cruise ships in port in Fort Lauderdale

Another yacht that looks like it's from the Star War movie

These are just normal looking boats in this area of Florida

Not the largest yacht we spotted today but one of the prettiest

The yacht built for Steve Jobs - Venus is 260' long making is a super yacht, but I don't think it's very pretty.

Here comes the next cold front

Feb. 4 – Dania Beach, FL

Dania Beach Marina

“Come walk with me along the beach, where sunsets seem within reach, we’ll search for treasures in the sand, as we walk hand in hand.” —Unknown

We began our morning on the flybridge enjoying our view of Boca Chita. This is a great spot and we probably would have stayed longer, but a front is moving in tonight and another one on Saturday so we needed to move on while we could get across Biscayne Bay.

The Miami skyline is beautiful as you cruise up Biscayne Bay and it looks wonderful from the water, but I have no desire to go ashore for a visit. Sometimes things are just better viewed from the outside. The port of Miami is a busy place with lots to see and a lot of boats to avoid...as pretty as the port is…it feels wonderful when we leave it in our wake.

We spent almost a week in Hollywood Beach in 2011 and enjoyed the area, so that was our destination today. Unfortunately the marinas in the area were full; there were a few places to anchor, but no shore access for our dinghy…so we moved up to Dania Beach. We’re at a nice marina just across the street from the beach and within biking distance of lots of shops and restaurants. After getting settled we rode our bikes along the boardwalk to Hollywood Beach. We enjoyed our afternoon visiting with a few people and watching the world go by. We’ll probably be here a few days as the weather settles down again.

Miami skyline

Miami from the water

A little hole in the wall kind of place on the ICW in Hollywood Beach...looks like a fun place.

We saw this catamaran in Hollywood Beach, it looks like it's from a Star War movie 

Dania Beach Pier - located right across the street from our boat.

Hollywood Beach

Our view from the restaurant we stopped at...not a bad way to spend the afternoon