Friday

Today started out cool and cloudy. It turned into cold and nasty. But before it became nasty we went to a beach on Jupiter Island.

 The road to the beach went through a long arcade of banyan trees. We had driven through rows of live oaks before, but the banyans are so cool, and you don't see them much outside of southern Florida.

Approaching the beach, there were lots of sand pipers and a few sanderlings. One of the sand pipers had only one leg, but he was able to hop around and keep up with the rest.

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While we were there a guy came down, carrying one of those stand-up paddle boards. There was a good deal of surf running, so it was interesting to see him work out beyond the break.

After a while of paddling outside the break, he came closer in and began surfing. In effect he was surfing with a long board.

He did pretty well .... most of the time.

After a while, we drove back in to Stuart to have lunch at Pelican Beach, our favorite waterfront restaurant. The food was good, but it was cold out on the deck (there is no indoor seating). We watched a boat out on the river. Sometimes he would go roaring up or down the river, and then he would shut down and just drift for a while.

Later, Anna went online and discovered that he was restoring oyster beds in the river, dumping in shell and oyster larvae.

After some shopping, we thankfully headed back to the ranch. Still no news from the insurance company (I have already authorized the repairs, so we are keeping our fingers crossed).