Lighthouse Point

We spent a long weekend at Lighthouse Point Yacht Club, arriving Thursday and due to leave tomorrow, Tuesday, assuming the weather cooperates.  What a great place to stay.  Beautiful facility, great pool, tiki bar with a Happy Hour, and great staff to help with docking.

Tristan arrived Friday night, for another 3 day weekend.  Since he is working in Augusta, it is just as easy for him to join us as it is to return to Toronto for the weekend.  Saturday morning, we took advantage of him having a car to do a provisioning run, which is always appreciated.  After lunch, we spent some time at the pool as it has been really hot here recently.  Even the locals are referring to it as "Summer temperatures".  We even have been running the air conditioning the last few nights to sleep well.  But seems to be cooling off a bit the next few days.

We toured Palm Beach area Saturday afternoon, and did a walk around the Flagler museum.  "Whitehall" was originally the home of the Flagler who built the railway to Key West.  As we arrived late in the day, we didn't visit the museum, saving this for another visit. It is a beautiful home though, and look forward to touring it.  We also briefly visited the Breakers hotel, which was one of the Florida East Coast Railway destination hotels, and a legend in the Palm Beach area.





The highlight of the day was attending opening night in the Grapefruit league, with a game between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals, who share a spring training facility in West Palm Beach.











 And what a facility!  On either side of the ball park, which seats about 7,700, each team has access to six full size baseball fields, a covered hitting tunnel facility, pitching area, agility training area, and physio facilities.  And the whole park gets used 6 weeks a year.


Sunday we took the boat out for a tour on the ICW, about a 1.5 hour trip back to Fort Lauderdale, to show Tristan the spectacular homes and yachts.  Tristan took the helm a number of times to experience the very "focused" boating activity, and even did a few of the bridge openings.  Beautiful afternoon, and even more busy than our original trip up since it was a Sunday.


















Monday was largely a maintenance day for Greg, dealing with minor items. while waiting for a visit from a technician to look at the stabilizers.  From our trip up, I had got the sense they weren't working properly.  Turns out, last time they were serviced, the locking pins which keep the fins centered while being serviced, had not been removed so the fins were totally non-operational.  With the locking pins out, the system was working fine. That was a useful visit, as the tech also gave me a few tips on proper use and maintenance,  I look forward to seeing them in action now.

Tomorrow we continue our trip north, with the next extended stop expected to be St Augustine, in the Jacksonville area, in about 10 days time, with Judy's sister Wendy, and spouse Craig, planning to visit.  

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