Friday, May 1, 2026 continued… They took the straps off, then we backed out of the slip and headed south down the ICW. Thankfully we only had to wait 7-minutes for the first bridge to open.
As we feared, the ICW was busy on a Friday afternoon. Lots of speed boats zoomed by and several tiny boats came terrifyingly close to us, but now we’re jaded and don’t freak out when the boats get close like we used to. We were pleased to report that the ride to the Lake Worth inlet was uneventful.
Wednesday, April 13 — Johnny and Joanne had recommended a breakfast/brunch restaurant in the same shopping center as Jeremiah’s called Berry Fresh Cafe. They had some unique menu items, both in terms of foods and beverages, that piqued our interest. The portions were huge and the food was fantastic. Keith ordered the Chorizo Crunch Wrap, which was a grilled tortilla stuffed with scrambled eggs, bacon, chorizo sausage, bacon, regular sausage, ham, cheddar and chipotle cream sauce. It was served with salsa on the side. Eric ordered the Nashville Chicken Biscuit, which had pimiento cheese, pickle slices, chicken tenders, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce served on a biscuit.
The sunrise on Sunday, April 12, 2026 was mostly blocked, but a sliver of sun managed to peep out from behind the clouds.
Saturday, Sunday and Monday were quiet days. We spent all three days doing chores around the boat in preparation for the haul out. We did lots of odds and ends, such as cooking up everything in the refrigerator that wouldn’t last for a couple of weeks and removing the storm plates from the windows. Last week, Eric had turned off the generator through-hull and opened up the generator so that the raw water pump could be changed. He got confirmation that it would be changed in the yard, so he put the generator back together and turned the through hull back to open on the off chance that it may need to be run. Someone came to pump out the blackwater tank. Eric and Keith also cleaned up rust stains that we’d noticed around the boat.
On Monday afternoon, we checked into a motel near the marina. It certainly wasn’t fancy, but it was the best deal in the area in terms of value for the money. Last year, this motel had been booked and Eric had been forced to stay farther away. He was happy about being closer this year.
Saturday, April 4 – Friday, April 10 — This week has been boring. On Saturday, we layed low for most of the day. We had dinner with the leader of the Ocean Posse and some of his friends. Some other boaters joined us later on. On Sunday, we went to Dad’s cousin’s house for Easter dinner. The food was good but other than that it was boooorrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnggggggg. At one point we went for a walk and saw at least a dozen rabbits.
Cette semaine était ennuyante. Samedi, on n’a pas fait beaucoup de choses. On a mangé le dîner avec le chef d’Ocean Posse et ses amis. D’autres marins nous ont rejoints. Dimanche, nous sommes allés à la maison du cousin de papa pour un dîner de Pâques. La nourriture était bonne mais tout le reste était ennuyant. A un moment nous sommes allés nous promener, et on a vu beaucoup de lapins.
continued… There was a large exhibit on the agriculture industry. Clewiston was dubbed “America’s Sweetest Town” because it is home to The United States Sugar Company, Florida’s largest producer. Here was a model of the plant.
In 1925, a group of investors bought a giant tract of land to create a sugarcane plantation. Interestingly enough, the principal investor also owned a company that produced Celotex boards, which were made from the fibrous remains of sugarcane after the sugar was processed out. Sugarcane became the predominant crop in the Clewiston area and Southern Sugar Company was the largest employer and property owner. One of their biggest early challenges was drainage. They dug canals to help the water go away and planted trees to help absorb the water that stayed. They bought a defunct sugar mill from another part of Florida and moved it to Clewiston. The mill opened in January 1929. Nine months later, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression set in. In 1930, they went bankrupt and were planning to halt production. One of the creditors and major shareholders, Charles Stewart Mott, stepped in to save the operation. He formed US Sugar and bought out Southern Sugar a few months later.
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