Let's buy a boat in Miami he said ....

Plan B

There were a few more Hunter 49's that we wanted to look at they were located up (North) the Florida coastline so we picked up our luggage and started driving - using google maps on Craigs phone.

While we were driving we picked out an airb&b in Boynton Beach which was 60 miles approx 1 hour drive from Miami and on the way to Fort Pierce the next boat on our list.

While we were driving we booked the airb&b, nothing like doing things on the run. The owner is a veteran airb&b host and wasn’t going to let us book without going through some pre requisites - picture this

Owner “Have you seen my rules" Me " Craig I need the phone to look at airb&b"
Craig " I need the maps to drive" Me "well we need to sleep somewhere".
so I look at the rules they all seem reasonable, txt reply “yes we don't mind if you have a pet, no we wont spray hairspray or wear perfume in your house etc, we agree to your terms”.

Owner txt “do you have photos of yourselves” I explain she will need to look on Facebook as we are driving and need the maps on the phone.

Owner Txt “ I don’t normally take bookings without checking you out thoroughly especially last minute ones”

We must have managed to convince her that we were nice and genuine as eventually we had a confirmed booking.

We stopped at a Target store and bought a sandwich for dinner. Our airb&b was lovely the room was clean and spacious with a shared bathroom, again we collapsed into bed exhausted.

In the morning we were served a beautiful breakfast of Pop Overs and we headed off to Fort Pierce.

Fort Pierce is a lovely town and it was St Patrick’s weekend so lots of people and lots to see, but we had come to look at a boat...

This boat was for sale but the broker selling it was not available to show it to us but via telephone the owner agreed to allow us access to view her, the marina owner was lovely but protective of the boats in her marina which is understandable and something we would all want but we had to plead our case to gain access.

She was a lovely Hunter 49 but not quite good enough.

After a burger for lunch we headed back south to Boyton Beach we drove down the coast road via West Palm Beach A1A OMG there are a lot of wealthy politicians and Hollywood stars live on this road, one side looks out to the ocean the other overlooks the inter coastal waterways. The mansions were huge and the gardens immaculate.

We were a bit disillusioned with our boat hunting, then we couldn’t find anywhere we fancied for dinner, we ended up at a Chinese restaurant in Boyton Beach.

The restaurant was full, we took that as a good sign. They had a ticket system, the patrons waited outside until their number was called it was really busy, the food was ok but it was a really funny night everyone looked like typical American grandparents, they were all retirees and those accents, think Seinfeld’s parents or Everyone Loves Raymond, in fact the whole trip so far had been a bit surreal, driving down the highway we were listening to Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Toto you guessed it Africa, Tom Petty, Foreigner yup love isn’t always on time, and what’s that other one Boys of Summer? It was a real step back in time.

We stayed a second night in Boyton and next morning we had beautiful Crepes for breakfast with homegrown star fruit and local mandarins. We loaded the car and got on the road with no real plan !!

We made it around the corner and pulled into a Starbucks, there was another boat worth looking at in St Augustine further up the coast. We literally spent the day in Starbucks organising to look at Liberty.

Our lovely airb&b In Boyton Beach that we had left that morning had offered us a 3rd night so we called and confirmed and drove back around the corner.
We found a great little place called chickpea for an early dinner, then filled in some time wandering around a Walmart.