Well would you believe it? Here we are in Vero Beach, Florida, looking over Maymio on the pontoon at the end of the garden. We are the fortunate guests of Bobbie and John Larsson who had also welcomed Mike and Jean off Sestina to their luxury house on the coast. They are long time friends of Mike and Jean from the ARC in 2004, leaving them in charge whilst they return to Maine for Christmas. It's a bit unreal really because their hospitality includes the use of their large Mercedes estate car. We had forgotten how much more pleasurable it is to go shopping in a car.

Evening cooking is much less of a problem when you can spread yourself around two yachts and a large kitchen with all the luxuries you could imagine. Prawns and salad last night and cottage pie tonight with the odd glass of Mouton Cadet - couldn't be better. Yesterday's jaunt out in the Merc took us to the most incredible second hand marine warehouse, in fact two warehouses, with as many stainless steel frames and gantries to fit a whole fishing fleet. 

In contrast to our extraordinary good fortune was our sail down from Cape Canaveral which was a bit bumpy and ending in a night at anchor in Fort Pierce. It was like a dodgem park with all the yachts moving around and often heading for one another before, at the last moment, the anchor taking hold avoiding another near miss. After two hours of this we had had enough so re-anchored in a bit more space. Soon a new load of boats were encroaching on our patch and the dodgems started all over again. The last straw was the coast guards siren getting us up to tell us we were now too close to the ICW canal. Only then did we accept the offer from Mike and Jean to join them on a dock just 7 miles up the ICW at Vero Beach - what a good move.

The weather has broken up again with a new cold front passing with rainy skies. We have to keep the weather here in perspective when thinking of the hurricanes blowing through Scotland at the moment.

We will have to move on shortly, before we are well and truly spoilt, moving south down the coast to Fort Worth before crossing to the Bahamas for Christmas.