A week in West Palm Beach

After raising our anchor in Lake Worth, we headed south on the Intracoastal Waterway and waited for the 5:15 pm opening of the Flagler Memorial Bridge.  Once through, we found the perfect spot to anchor across from the West Palm Beach waterfront.  The water was calm and the view of the sun setting behind the city was beautiful.  We took the dinghy to the city dock and went to explore the downtown and have some dinner.

Our week at West Palm Beach consisted of school, shopping, boat work, work work, exploring, playing, and eating.  In our continuing effort to preserve our onboard food stores, we made sure to enjoy the local cuisine.  We also (Brian in particular) spent a lot of time at the local grocery and marine supply stores.  The lack of a car necessitated multiple, incomplete trips to the grocery store so that we didn’t leave with more than we could carry in backpacks and big bags the eight blocks back to the waterfront.
 
A typical day in West Palm Beach: Breakfast and morning clean-up.  Kendall and the kids begin the day’s boat school session while Brian and Bobby (from Alkemi) head to shore to run errands.  Brian returns after lunch and depending on how the school day has progressed and whether or not he has work to do on the boat, we go on a family or partial family outing.  Sometimes this outing was just a trip to shore to run more errands and/or have dinner, other times, it was more exciting.
 
One afternoon, we crossed the bridge to Palm Beach, walked across the barrier island to the Atlantic, and swam and searched for shells at the beach.  One another day, Brian and I took Marin, Isla, and Jolly and Myles from Alkemi ashore to play in the fountain and get ice cream while the older boys stayed on Alkemi.  Later in the week while Brian did work work, we went on a field trip to learn about gilded age Florida and railroad/oil executive Henry Flagler at the Flagler Museum.  The kids enjoyed seeing the opulent first floor and the upstairs bedrooms, each decorated in a different theme.  While at the museum we had the good fortune to see a traveling exhibit of Edward Curtis’ photographs of Native Americans.  We’d seen the photos many times in books but had never seen the originals and it was an incredibly moving glimpse into a vanishing culture and into Curtis’ motivations for what became his life’s work.