Riviera Beach to Stuart Yachts to Fort Pierce

Day #169; Loop miles to date = 2,030

Warning...this first 2 paragraphs are boring boat geek stuff!

On Wednesday, we made our way to Stuart Yacht for our scheduled haul-out on Thursday. We had 2 items that we wanted to accomplish and both were completed by mid-afternoon on Friday. The first of these was to pull the rudder again and re-orient the rudder components. We found that the way it had been installed last visit did not allow us to add packing to the seal and this just didn't make sense. In short, we moved the stop collar to the outside of the hull and located it just above the rudder shaft zinc. Now we can get access to the top of the shaft seal to service it as needed down the road.

The second item was to replace our raw water pump on our Cummins engine. The original pump was showing signs of leakage, which is a precursor to pump failure. This specific pump has a life expectancy of 800 to 1200 hours, and we have almost 2000 hours on the engine, so we definitely got our money's worth out of this original! The new pump is supposed to be an improved design, and we expect it to last for a long time.

We were happy to catch up to our friends on InSpeyered 2 in Stuart...we think this might be one of their adopted homes now (just kidding). They were in for some additional work, and it was great to spend some time with them while in Stuart. They are off to the Bahamas soon, and we are headed north, so it was nice to have our paths cross for a visit.

On Saturday, we ventured back to the ICW (15 miles or so from the boat yard) and made our way to Fort Pierce. We had a very pleasant day on the water, with great weather. Everything that had been worked on at the boat yard worked to perfection, and we even had some dolphins perform in our wake for us for awhile...much fun!

On the way out of the St Lucie River from the boat yard, we passed a couple of crew teams practicing. We speculated that these were perhaps college teams who had traveled to Florida over Spring break to practice in the nice warm weather.

We had 3 or 4 dolphin playing in our wake in the ICW on the way to Fort Pierce for about 10 minutes. It NEVER gets old!

We knew we were roughly on the same time schedule as our friends on Corkscrew, as they were also headed to the same marina from a different starting point. And we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves parked right down the dock from them when we arrived! They are here for the weekend too, and then we might even have the next stop in common as well. Additionally, we stumbled across our friends from Liquid Assets who were visiting by car. And there are probably other loopers here...it is a pretty big marina.

We also discovered that we had landed at Fort Pierce City Marina at exactly the right moment. On Saturday night there was a music festival directly at the end of our dock in the marina parking lot, on Easter morning there was a sunrise service on the water not more than a 2 minute walk away, and on Sunday afternoon there is also a small jazz and blues festival nearby.

All in all, we've had a very successful and pleasant week. Now tomorrow we are off to Vero Beach to see what that's all about...stay tuned and Happy Easter!

Ft Lauderdale to Lighthouse Point to Riviera Beach

Day #165; Loop miles to date = 1,941

The past 2 days have been busy days on the ICW...lots and lots of bridges and boat traffic. We are retracing some water that we have already traversed, and it is just as congested as we remember! Tonight we are at the Lake Park Marina, just north of Lake Worth in Palm Beach. Most of the worst of the congestion is now behind us, but we have some more in our sights for tomorrow. Our aim is to arrive in Stuart at the boat yard by Wednesday late afternoon, with our haul-out scheduled for Thursday. Not much exciting to report, other than the weather is spectacular (although a bit windy) and we are in great spirits!

  

A couple of big yachts coming our way. These guys are coming back south from the West Palm Beach Boat Show...just like the ones that we saw while on the New River.

This one had 2 tow boats moving it...we think it was about 170' long.

And about 125'.

This one was still at the boat show location...it looked like something out of Star Wars. Wow is all we could say...

This was our view tonight from our slip...a beautiful full moon rise. Our friends on California Lady and InSpeyered2 are up the coast waiting to see a launch at the Space Center...we hope that it is clear up there and the 11:00pm launch is on time!

Marathon to Ft Lauderdale - A Few More PHOTOS

Just a couple of photos that we neglected to include in the previous post...

On our trip form Tarpon Basin to Miami, it was so incredibly calm. The water was like glass for a while...very peaceful.
 

And here's Jenny at the Coral Reef Yacht Club before her Wednesday races!

Not sure that this picture does it justice (cell phone pic) but we had a gorgeous sunset at our anchorage at Tarpon Basin near Key Largo.

Marathon to Tarpon Basin to Miami to Fort Lauderdale - PHOTOS

Day #158; Loop Miles to date = 1,888

OK...this one is an addendum to yesterday's posting...all photos from this couple of days of travel...

Dolphins! We had a half dozen or more swimming with us for quite awhile in the stretch between Tarpon Basin and Miami. The water was incredibly calm and clear.

Showing off...showing us his belly!

Jenny's regatta in Coconut Grove...

Where in the world is Jenny in all of this??

For part of our trip on Wednesday, it was hard to distinguish between water and sky...that little speck out there is a boat about 4 miles away. It was the only thing that defined the distant horizon for us...everything was very blue!

This derelict looking vessel was at the entrance to the Yacht Club...I'm sure they aren't too pleased with this guys choice of anchorages. We think that it is actually someone's live aboard. (It even had an AIS signature.)

US Customs and Boarder Patrol boat zooming past us.

A couple of really large US Coast Guard vessels at the Port of Miami.

Someone's having fun on a big pleasure yacht.

A couple of shots of the Port of Miami...the scale is breathtaking.

 

And finally, a view of Miami Beach from our seat in the Atlantic Ocean.

Marathon to Tarpon Basin to Miami to Fort Lauderdale

OK...we've been on the move, but lax at updating our blog...it's been a bit busy. Here are the cliff notes:

• We left Marathon on Monday and traveled about 50 miles to an anchorage at Tarpon Basin near Key Largo. A nice protected anchorage, with a dinghy dock at the police station/county building where we could walk the dogs easily. It worked out great.
• On Tuesday, we made tracks for Miami...Coconut Grove actually and the Coral Reef Yacht Club. It was about another 45 miles. Jenny was in town for a Lightning Regatta, and we were able to work it out so we could get together. It was terrific! We got there before Tuesday's races were over, and then were able to spend the evening together. It was wonderful to catch up and chat, and we are so glad that Jenny reached out to let us know she was in our path! And when we left, her team was in 1st place...we haven't heard the final outcome, but fingers crossed.
• On Wednesday morning we headed out of the Port of Miami into the Atlantic Ocean, and traveled a total of about 35 miles to Fort Lauderdale. We decided to go on the outside instead of the ICW to avoid all of the bridges and traffic. The weather was great, the water not rough, but not flat. We were able to put the pedal down and traveled much of the way at 13.5 mph...which for us is lightning fast! Both of the ports, in Miami and Ft L were really messy...just tons of all kinds of boat traffic and wakes.

We now are back at the Ft Lauderdale City Docks on the New River...at Cooley's Landing actually. And, we've decided to stay here for a few days. The boat yard in Stuart wasn't planning to be ready for us until after the weekend, so we decided not to rush up there just yet. So, we will camp out here, likely through the weekend. This part of the ICW is just really, really busy with boat traffic on the weekends, so we think we'll stay put and wait for Monday to move once again. And, one of our pups is a bit under the weather...we're thinking that it might just be some heat related issues...they got a little too hot yesterday. So, we are also better off sitting here at the dock than moving for her sake. And besides that...we like it here!

Pictures of the last few days to follow sometime later...we're assembling them...we had some serious dolphin interaction on the way up here, and we are editing some of the photos to get the best ones ready for the blog. So, no pictures right now...coming soon.

A Month in Marathon, and Now it's Time to Move On

We've really enjoyed our month in Marathon at Faro Blanco. We have had tons of fun with a variety of friends, and we'll always remember our time here fondly. Some of our friends have already departed the area, and we will also leave some lagging behind us. As we travel onwards, we know we will meet up with all of them again...we just don't know when and where for certain. But now it is our turn to move on, so tomorrow (Monday) we will depart for points north.

We're excited that our travel plan looks like it will coincide with a regatta in the Miami area that our niece Jenny is competing in this week! She was able to make arrangements for us to stay at the Yacht Club where the regatta is based, and we will have the chance to see and visit with her on Tuesday this week if all goes according to plan. We are really looking forward to this, and are thankful that this worked out so perfectly!

Here is a smattering of the hard work that we have been putting in recently...

We went to the Dolphin Research Center one day. An amazing facility that has 25-30 dolphins that they train and are continually doing research with over many years. This is actually the facility where much of the old TV show "Flipper" was filmed. A number of Flippers' extended family are still here, and help to continue our understanding of these remarkable creatures.

These guys love to cruise in their lagoons and keep an eye on everyone who is there checking them out. An interesting factoid that we learned - Dolphins routinely rest 1/2 of their brain at a time so that they can multi-task whenever necessary. This allows them to concentrate on jumping and swimming and communicating, while still having 1/2 their brain available to be on the lookout for predators. Very interesting.

We saw countless displays of teamwork between dolphins and trainers...and even when you know a jump is coming it is sill hard to get a good pic!

This guy was just hanging out in the bushes at the DRC...they are all over the place here.

Nothing like frozen Key Lime pie on a stick...dipped in chocolate of course. Way too good...

We had a big catamaran sailboat docked next to us for a few days. On this day, young lad Jordon had to do some fussing with some rigging about 30 feet in the air. Sound like fun?

Random shot for Carl...in a Walgreens parking lot on the way to Publix one day.

Yesterday we went to the annual Marathon Seafood Festival. We had a great time...lots of seafood, 100's of vendors selling wares, live bands...the whole works. We lasted about 3 hours, and then the air conditioning on our boat started calling our names!

Our home for the past month...great fun had by all!

So tomorrow we are off. Our rough schedule is to hit an anchorage on Monday, Miami to hook up with Jenny on Tuesday, Ft Lauderdale on Wednesday, and then we'll figure it out from there. We plan to be in Stuart at the boat yard by the weekend, and then who knows??

Stay tuned...

Still in Marathon...into Week #3

Day #145; Loop Miles to Date = 1,751

It's interesting how things work out.

When we first planned our visit to Marathon, we figured we'd want to be here for a month. Then we changed it to 3 weeks when our arrival was delayed by a bit. Then, when we first got here, we thought that we might cut that short and stick around for less than 2 weeks. Now, here we sit and in a couple of days it will have been 3 weeks, and we likely won't get out of here until after that day passes. So...it looks like our first guess on time spent here turned out to be about right.

The weather has turned really, really nice the past few days, and that has encouraged some of the folks who have been here much of the winter to head out and venture northward...including our friends on California Lady earlier today. It's been great spending time with them, and we look forward to catching up to them somewhere "up the road" before too long. For us, it's wonderful to enjoy the light winds and warm temps. Today, we left the dock for the first time since arriving, and went snorkeling out at Sombrero Reef...only about 5 miles from our marina. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and we thoroughly enjoyed the relaxation.

We don't have a bunch of photos to share...we just haven't been very focused on snapping pics of day to day life here. Of note since our last posting, we have:

• Taken Lola to the vet to get a check-up and to get some blood work done...nothing serious we hope. We should find out tomorrow.
• Taken Kikie to the groomer to get a haircut...frankly not a great one, but she should be much more comfortable now that she is clipped.
• Acquired a second fold-up bike so that now both of us can ride at the same time instead of taking turns. We've both gotten a fair bit of exercise, as the Publix is 2 miles away, and one of us ends up there about every other day. Sandy has also ventured further in both directions from the marina, logging a couple of 6 or 7 mile jaunts. (A bit more exercise than it sounds like since these bikes are not really full sized.)
• Celebrated Sandy's birthday...thanks to all for the cards and best wishes.
• Had a ball playing a card/board game called Jokers, with our friends on California Lady and Act III.
• Toured the Turtle Rescue Center...this was fascinating and we do have a couple of pics of this outing.
• Confirmed that it is dangerous to have a West Marine right across the street from your marina. We've made way too many trips there to purchase stuff for the boat!

The Turtle Rescue Center rescues turtles from all over the Keys. Of the 7 turtle species found worldwide, 5 of them can be found in the Keys.

This is a Green Turtle, the most prevalent species found here. If we remember correctly it's being treated for tumors, a rather common ailment.



And this little guy is a Loggerhead...not so common around here. These guys grow to be 300 lbs, and live for 50 or more years. This specimen was only about 10 lbs or so...we can't recall why he was at the facility.

All for now...we'll probably post again when we are on the move. Next direction for us is back up the Keys towards Miami, backtracking a bit of ground that we have already covered. And, we are headed back to Stuart Yacht Builders...one of the repairs that we had attended to needs some additional fine tuning (our rudder seal again). Nothing serious, but we'd like to get it corrected before we venture too much further. It should not be a major undertaking, but we will likely be there for a day or two.