75 L O N G Miles

I think, Friday, we learned, first hand, what we've been reading for so long. You cannot manage or depend on a "time-schedule" when you are on a boat.

On Thursday, we went 70 miles in 5 hours.

On Friday, we went 75 miles in 8 hours.

Remember, the map I showed on Thursday, the one we had to navigate through. The WHOLE trip Friday was like that. We saw some really cool cities...but ALOT of cities...I think that was part of the hang-up.

To name a few of the cities we saw...Jensen Beach, Stewart, Juniper, North Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Pompano Beach, Boynton Beach, and ended up in Delay Beach (really close to Boca Raton).

We didn't realize how exciting bridges could be until those are the only things, besides water, to see!

We got R E A L L Y nervous when we took our 10 ft. boat under an 10 1/2 foot bridge. I drove...can you believe it....so that Gary could watch to make sure we weren't going to hit the bottom of the bridge.

We, also, came to a 6 ft. bridge and had to wait, in idle, for 15 minutes for it to open so we could go through. We've heard about waiting HOURS for bridges to open. We were happy that we only had to wait 15 minutes.

The most exciting things, though, were (1) IT WAS WARM....74 degrees and our first day of warm weather since we've been gone.

(2) We took the boat into the open ocean. I cannot put into words how amazing, terrifying, glorious, and nail-biting that was - all at the same time. The water was soooooooooooo blue it looked fake, like a water ride at Universal. But it wasn't fake. It was God, and I found myself in awe of Him and His creation, yet again.

(3) We backed into a slip. Yes, we, actually, parked in a slip. Oh wait, docked in a slip....I want to use the "right" boating lingo :) The dock hand said he would have never known that it was Gary's first time. He said - "usually when people tell me it's their first time, it's like watching bumper cars." Gary didn't hit a single bumper. He just eased us right in!

We ventured out of the marina tonight - our first time - to eat on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach. They told us it was a famous street. I've never heard of it. (unless it's the one in Monopoly) Anyway, we found this great Irish restaurant. I had to talk Gary out of eating "black pudding" after I asked our server what it was. She said it was blood made into pudding! YUCK! I refused to get back on the boat with him if he ate it, so he, graciously, substituted it for Irish bacon. Oh, well.....just a little trivia.

We are only 1/2 day to Miami. That will be our destination for Saturday.

It's raining, and dark, and cold out there this morning. We have all our windows up. Hopefully, that will block most of the rain. However, it should be another interesting day with more lessons learned.

Keep you posted!

P.S. Pictures won't upload. Will add them later!

Genesis 1:4 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.