We left our anchorage at Peanut Island and headed toward another anchorage. Today was St. Patrick’s Day and all festivities had been cancelled across the US. We were now hearing to stay six feet away from people and avoid crowds- this should be easy to do on a boat. Now that we were stocked too, we could ‘stay at sea’ and not hit land for a few weeks if need be. We motored up the ICW toward Jupiter, Florida. There are several anchorages marked on our charts and we decided we would see which looked best as we passed them. We didn’t plan on going too far today, as we have nowhere to be except in Melbourne, Florida by the end of the month to meet family. At this point the only people we will be seeing will be family that lives there as travel in now being shut down too, so we are taking our time.
We came to the anchorage we had ‘planned’ and it looked good. We motored past it and looked at another anchorage a little farther up river, but decided to go back to the Sand Bar Anchorage. I liked this best with the wind forecast, as it was more protected from a northern wind. The anchorage was right off the ICW with a large sand bar that is visible and dry at low tide, then only a foot or two underwater at high tide. This helps stop any waves rolling our way from the north. It is also a ‘no wake’ zone, so most boats (except the ass-hats that don’t understand what ‘no wake’ means) go slow. There were a couple of other boats anchored in the vicinity but there was plenty of room for us. I noticed a few boats pulled up to the sand bar and close beach with people hanging out and chilling on lounge chairs. The crowd was mostly adults and a few children, but all chill. Lauren and I sat on the boat and were talking about how ‘social distancing’ will work and watching these people on shore not have a concern about it. It being St. Patrick’s Day and all, I had some bourbon with my anchor beer as we sat and chatted. Lauren eventually went inside out of the sun and was reading a book while I hung out on the back porch. I was watching the light traffic of boats pass by when I heard a boat approaching with its music blasting. It was filled with college aged kids, with two guys and about eight girls partying on! They were having fun and I watched them beach the boat. Soon another boat, blasting more loud music arrived with about the same ratio- 2 guys vs. eight girls, also roll up and beach their boat on the other side of the line. Now the beach was rocking! They were all partying, dancing on the boats and just having a good ol’ time! This must have made others notice- soon another couple of boats filled with party people showed up and joined in! Lauren came out to watch with me and tease me- I was sitting there watching, drink in hand, like a peeping tom! We had fun bantering back and forth and watching them all carry on. Social distancing is not a thing yet here. As the party was going on, a police boat rolled up to put an end to it. The cops beached their boat and started checking ID’s. We were too far away to hear the interactions, but eventually the party started to break up and boats started leaving. No one was arrested and the beach eventually cleared out. This was our opportunity to take Frank to shore and not be around all of the people, so we did.
The rest of the night was uneventful. Dinner, dog walk, planning for tomorrow. We were hoping to go to Stuart, Florida, but we are hearing reports of marinas being closed down. There is a free dock there and an anchorage, so we will play it by ear tomorrow and see where we end up!