Three Days in Ft. Lauderdale

Compass Rose spent three days in Lake Sylvia, Ft. Lauderdale waiting for the weather to improve for a Bahamas crossing. We had a wonderful time waiting with the thirty or so other boats. We were there with Papillon and Avalon.

You can dingy around Ft Lauderdale from the Lake. We were guided though the many canals by Mike and Pegge McLaughlin who had local knowledge after living there for many years.

The turtles were nesting on the beaches and as you can see from the signage they take this very seriously. All of the lights along the beaches have covers that block the lights from the beach front. Otherwise, the turtles will crawl towards the lights and away from the ocean. Guess they don't have much of an internal compass.

We were in the midst of spring break so the beaches were very crowded. It was great to feel the sand between our toes. This was as close to the Bahamas as we were going to get.

Winter in Jensen Beach, FL

After spending four glorious months in Jensen Beach, Florida we are now on the move again. We gave up going to the Bahamas after spending 3 days in Lake Sylvia waiting for the winds to stop. The weather did not cooperate so we have started our trip north.

This winter we drove our car back to Florida after our Christmas trip home. This made our numerous trips to Naples much easier. We helped John’s Mom with her move back to Maryland. We also made a trip to Disney World to meet the kids for a day in the park. That was great fun but we have to say that one day is about all we can do at their pace! We made another trip home over Easter to take the car back north. .

Our stay in Jensen Beach was fabulous. We stayed at the Four Fish Marina which is located on the ICW just north of Stuart and south of Ft. Pierce. The area has so much to offer in the way of things to do, all the shopping anyone could want, great beaches only 5 minutes away, many public golf courses and you can ride your bike to anywhere you might want to go. But the most wonderful part of our stay was “The Hood” as we called ourselves. At any given time there were no less than six Krogens at the marina and there were as many as thirteen at the height of “The
Hood”. This was truly a community with a personality that we call the Krogen Family. We were all there to support each other in what ever way we could. Great times were had and new friendships were made.

Pam’s sister Jan made a visit for 10 days in February. We had good weather the whole time she was here. We had great days at the beach and 5 o’clock happy hours in The Hood every night. Bob and BJ were able to spend some time with us in March as did Chuck and Lisa Gorum. We also had visits from Bill and Geraldine Falk and Richard and Michelle Sanger. Jensen is a good place to have company with so much to do in the area.

Pam and Casey took Jazzercise classes every morning and got to know some of the other ladies in the class.

John did some major repairs on the boat. He worked tirelessly for three weeks on the fuel tanks.

We are sorry to have the winter-stay in Jensen end but we are anxious to start our trip back to Annapolis. We will try to keep the blog going as we move north up the waterway.