Tuesday May 7 & Wednesday May 8 (Boynton Beach and Delray Beach)

Tuesday

There was sun and cloud today and it was still warm. I put washing and towels through today and then did my ironing.

Wednesday

Yesterday, I took a bus trip to Delray Beach, not far to the south of us. 


I was going on a two hour cruise on the Intracoastal waterway! It would pass where I am staying so it will be good to see from the water.

I had time for a coffee at Starbucks where three of the local police force were obviously on their early lunch break, lol!

 It was only a short walk to where the cruise would depart and I was there in plenty of time to purchase my ticket. 

We queued for a while and had our photos taken before boarding and I went up to the top deck so I could enjoy uninterrupted views and also the sun! 

The Delray bridge was just in front of us and we watched it raised for a barge with a large crane aboard. I had seen this barge a few times!

The Intracoastal runs from Boston in the north all the way to Miami. 

It is a mix of natural and man made waterways and is maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

During WWII it was extremely valuable as it allowed ships to travel up and down the east coast of the US safe from the U-Boats that patrolled the Atlantic.

Delray was originally named Linton after the congressman who founded it. A very hard freeze at the end of the nineteenth century saw many people leave. 


In an effort to change its luck it was renamed Delray after the Michigan town that many people came from, later the word Beach was added.

There are many huge houses and there is obviouly a lot of money tied up in the area. 


Many houses are not year round residences, they might only be lived in for a couple of weeks but a household is maintained year round to keep it in good order, this includes the outside!

Some years ago, and over towards the sea side of Delray, the family that owned Coca Cola decided to build a mansion. It cost them $24M but they received a threat to kidnap the daughter so the family never moved in. The mansion was sold to a Hollywood movie company who proceeded to blow it up in Bad Boys 2, LOL!

We travelled along and under two bridges that would lift on demand, the third bridge, in Boynton Beach, only lifted on the hour and the half hour so we had to be there on time. Just before the bridge, we passed the two restaurants that I have been to, Banana Boat and Two Georges.

Once under the bridge we passed where I am staying, on the poor side, lol! The other side, Ocean Ridge, has the expensive houses. The water here was quite shallow with only about six feet of water under the boat. The tidal difference here is about 6 feet but further north, around Boston it is 40 feet, the further from the equator you travel the greater the tidal difference is between low and high tides.

As we cruised towards Manalapan Island and passed several mansions including that owned by Billy Joel who paid $25M for it. We made a turn at the island as we had to be back for the bridge raising at 3 pm!

We made it and headed back to Delray. It was a lovely cruise, I chatted to a few people and was about to enjoy a Baileys until I was informed the boat has a policy that liqueurs were not served with ice, honestly!!! Who drinks Baileys without ice???

I was tired by the time we docked so I walked back to the bus stop and caught the first one to come along, then all I had to do was walk home from where it dropped me off!