There should be no surprise that when I avoid chores as well as I have lately, they just pile up more and more. I really love to make things and, for some reason, detest finishing things. My little tapestry is still waiting to get the back threads trimmed and buried and have its warp ends finished in some way. While avoiding this tedious chore I have been knitting the “For Irene”sweater. As of this afternoon, it is now also completed and that means it also needs finishing. Not sure which I detest more: finishing tapestries or sewing sweaters together. Ugh.
I had one of the worst night’s sleep ever last night because of high winds blowing through our anchorage. When the wind is blowing Pandora is much like an anxious dog. She tends to tug as hard as she can at her anchor line, first pulling as hard to port as she can, which includes heeling over a bit. Then she’ll pull hard to starboard and heel over there too. Back and forth… all night. When it gets really windy it feels like I might fall out of bed. Who could sleep through that?
Shortly after we got up this morning a really nasty squall came through. Our middle of the night wind was nothing compared to this. Bob thinks the gusts probably hit around 70 mph. We both thought we would drag our anchor right across the harbor and crash into either a mega yacht docked in any of the mega-mansion back gardens or one of the other traveling boats anchored along with us. Other boats around us did drag rather significant distances, and we all felt lucky that no one bumped into each other. Bob thinks we were probably a bit closer to one of the mega-mansions with mega-yacht than we had been the night before. During the big blow there was a solid wall of horizontal water coming at us. Poor Bob had to go out in the cockpit during this squall in order to keep vigil in case he had to deal with an emergency. The whole storm lasted less than 30 minutes, but it was NO fun.
Afterward we saw some lawn furniture float by from one of the mega-mansions, and Bob saw what looked like the entire top of a palm tree in the water.
I have been meaning to mention that although I never did get afternoon tea at the Breakers, we did have a fun time there. We did not find afternoon tea, but we made do with having an afternoon aperitif! Most expensive drinks ever! Bob had a draught beer and I had a glass of house wine, and the bill was over $30! Still, there aren’t many places where the actual bar, where you rest your drink, is an aquarium, and right in front of you is a wall of glass for admiring the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes you have to pay for a view like this.
I’m pretty certain that the hotel is closer to the water’s edge than it was a decade or so ago when Bob and I stayed here for one of his business meetings. Hmmmm….
This year is our first visit to Boca Raton. We have anchored in Lake Boca before, but for some reason we did not go ashore. Now we have seen a bit of what we’ve missed! It’s a lovely town for walking….lots to do! Naturally I found some gardens and houses that I couldn’t resist photographing. The mailbox seems so completely out of place at this house.
I loved this pale lavender house with green plants and planters and the deep rust of the gate. Great color choices!
We also happend on a beautiful florist along our walk. The arrangements on display would have fit right in at the Breakers. I guess lots of people have foyers on that scale. For Pandora I just needed a tiny arrangement. It was hard to decide between cut hyacinths or spray roses. Finally it was the yellow and pink that won out over pale lavender and purple hyacinths….but it wasn’t easy to decide!
At the dinghy dock in Boca we saw a flock of very tame ibises who are used to having their photos taken.
Most interesting of all to Bob and me was that we found a Portuguese Man of War floating between the dinghy dock and the ICW bridge. I think it’s pretty unusual for them to come in from the ocean. Seeing it made me wish I had my big loom onboard so I could continue to work on my PMoW idea. Sigh…. If you look closely on the left side of the creature you can see his tentacles. Menacing tentacles! I love what happened with the swirling water in this photo….very painterly!
So, now it is mid-afternoon and we have arrived in Ft. Laurderdale at the anchorage we have visited for the past three years. It’s considerably more crowded than we’d like, and I keep thinking about squalls brewing. It’s still quite windy and now the harbor is narrower and more crowded than Lake Boca, and I wish the wind would calm down a few notches. Sewing my sweater together is not looking like such a bad chore now. I think I’ll get on it. Hopefully I’ll take photos soon!
