The plan was to try and get to Fort Pierce by sundown so I was up and at it early!

I had hoped to stop and see ‘Grandpa Bob’ (the father of Bruce from Rhode Island who cheered up me and John with a visit last time we were on our way through Fort Pierce and a little down and out with all of our breakdowns and struggles).

But because it was so close to Christmas, he was not in Florida, he was away visiting family. So that meant I was just dropping the anchor overnight and continuing on to West Palm Beach the next day.

It was a long and relatively straight route and I tried to keep the sails out to pinch a little extra speed where I could!

In the end, I pushed it way too close to sunset and was in fact motoring along in the dark.  

I decided not to go all the way to Fort Pierce and dropped the anchor just before in Port St Lucie.  There were a couple dodgy boats around – I hate anchoring near derelict boats as they seem like the most likely to chafe an anchor line or have some other problem that could involve them smacking into me – but the forecast was mild overnight and I would be leaving ASAP in the morning.