Fort Pierce to Peck Lake

Yesterday on my 3 mile run I had to cross a bascule drawbridge.  As I ran along the bridge I saw that a sailboat was waiting to go through.  I knew this bridge opens on demand so I believed I had only a few seconds to get through the gates before they lowered and the bridge began opening. I did not want to wait so I turned on the afterburners with my hands pumping high and low as I reached down deep for all the speed I had.  As I passed the control tower I could see the bridge operator laughing at me.  I easily made it across and then realized that he had been waiting for another sailboat coming from the other direction.  The bridge did not open for several minutes but it gave me time to snap a picture of the opening and of the two sailboats passing through.

Today we came upon the prettiest anchorage we have seen in Florida.  We had heard about an anchorage in Peck Lake.  It's not really a lake but just a widening of an area of the ICW.  I had been a little apprehensive about going to Peck Lake because the charts do not give depths there other than a few 3 or 4 foot soundings.  Another longtime cruiser in Vero told us that many years ago the ocean broke through this area in a hurricane forming a new inlet.  To close the gap a channel was cut from the ICW channel to the break in the the barrier beach.  The equipment for filling the gap was brought to the barrier beach through the new channel.  Once the barrier beach was repaired the new channel remained and now forms a 6 to12 foot deep area good for anchoring.  Very slowly we rounded the mark that supposedly marked the entrance to the anchorage and found indeed that the waters off the ICW channel were deeper than the ICW itself.  We anchored in about 6 feet of water only about 150 feet from the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge.  We launched our dinghy and pulled it up on the beach.  A very short walk on a sandy path through some mangrove trees put us on a beautiful beach on the Atlantic Ocean.  There were only a few other people on the beach and no one near us as we took a walk along the edge of the surf.  After our walk Maryanne returned to the drudgery of preparing for classes while I returned to the beach for a 2 mile run and a dunk in the ocean.  This is my first swim in the Atlantic this season - January 9th!  When Chad and Nicole sailed to Fort Pierce two years ago in January, they practically froze as they bundled up in their boat trying to stay warm.  As I write this I can hear the surf on the other side of the narrow barrier island.  It is beautiful here.

The Hobe  National Wildlife Refuge

A perfect place for a January dip!