The other day we got to further participate in car culture, when we rented a car for the day in order to retrieve mail that we had missed picking up in Daytona Beach. Here’s my main observation about that experience: Driving down a highway in a metal box at 80 mph, surrounded on all sides by other cars going 80 mph, many of them paying more attention to their cell phones than the road, seems to me WAY more dangerous than traveling in a sailboat. People think that we are so brave to go on this trip, but it takes a certain insane courage to get on the highway every day as well. The split second decision making requirement while going at such high speeds is remarkable, and the potential danger at a moment of inattention is much more lethal than traveling in a slow moving boat. I was very happy to get back on our slow boat at the end of the day!

Today we passed through the section of the ICW that goes through North Palm Beach, where there are miles upon miles of palatial mega mansions. We have seen many gorgeous homes along the ICW, but this stretch definitely topped them all. We had clearly arrived in the exclusive land of the rich and famous. These were not your average cookie cutter McMansions.

Each was is uniquely stunning, and clearly designed by top notch architects. Each one was perfectly manicured, ready to be photographed for some magazine featuring luxury homes. And each one was empty. There was almost no sign of any human life in hardly any of them. For several hours we passed by dream home after dream home, and even on a major winter holiday, a time it would seem that people who have luxury vacation homes would be there enjoying them, we saw only two of them that had people around. Wow.

There were plenty of people, however, out enjoying their speedboats. One after another screamed by us with no regard whatsoever for the effect a huge wake has on a sailboat. We got rocked and rolled all day long. WhooHoo! Merry Christmas!