Stuart, Florida

It never ceases to amaze me, that I can go to a place that I had practically never heard of and be absolutely enthralled by the place. This place has everything any boater or tourist for that matter, would need. A Publix supermaket, 10 minutes walk from the marina, a nice park a couple of blocks away, a board walk around the bay to the old town of Stuart that has many small cafes and restaurants, and a great 2 mile jogging route for running over one bridge and back on another. The marina has great facilities including very clean bathrooms and a boaters lounge with books, fast internet, TV and even a popcorn machine. Needless to say it is very well patronized. I plan on hanging around a while.

North Palm Beach to Stuart, Florida

Today we said goodbye to our friends in North Palm Beach and headed north.

It was VERY windy for our trip north but fortunately, the tide was with us most of the way. Everywhere you go in Florida, wildlife are not far away, especially pelicans.

Even though it is Florida, it is COLD! Not as cold as the northeast mind you. Moshe is so happy he is not in his home town of Philadelphia, PA at the moment because they are experiencing a blizzard.

We are going to hang out at the Sunset Marina for a little while as they have a great reputation.

Jacksonville to Lake Worth

Lake Worth has shorts and T-shirts weather compared with the heavy jacket and gloves we had to wear when we were leaving Jacksonville.

We had a wonderful sail down on the outside. The first night we were treated to an Atlas rocket launch from Cape Canaveral which is absolutely spectacular from out on the water.

The wind did kick up yesterday so we came in the Lake Worth entrance late at night which happened to coincide with a submarine and a flotilla of BoatUS skiffs. Now the entrance is not very wide so even though we were in front of this armada, I learnt some sailor language that I had not heard before from ladies no less. We dropped the hook just after the entrance and then headed up to North Palm Beach Marina in the morning where we plan to stay a couple of days.

Still Stuck in Jacksonville

Well the Main Street Bridge here in downtown Jacksonville is still stuck in the down position so we made the most of the beautiful day and caught a train and then a bus out the to St John's mall, 9 miles east of downtown. There we found an REI where we picked up a nice warm sleeping bag and a pump to pump up all my Taylor made fenders that had deflated in the 6 months since I bought them.

Tonight, the bridge tender told us that they were going to open the bridge briefly and to line up in front of it. Needless to say, an hour and a half later, the bridge did not open and we returned to the dock. Hopefully we can get out of here tomorrow morning. There are worse places we could be stuck!

Green Cove Springs to Jacksonville

It is so nice to be back cruising on the water! We left at 10 am and motored into a stiff breeze but got held up at the Main Street bridge in Downtown Jacksonville. It has been broken down for a day now with electrical problems but hopefully it will be up and running tomorrow morning for us to get past and continue our journey south. If that is the case, we may not do another blog posting until later in the week when we get back within Verizon range. In the meantime wish both Moshe and myself fair winds and following seas!

Splash Day

Today was a beautiful day for putting the boat in the water.

The dinghy is all pumped up, the water tanks are full and the batteries are all charged up.

We are planning to leave first thing in the morning and head up to Jacksonville and anchor  there tomorrow night.

Painting the bottom

I had my friend Moshe who will be sailing with me for a couple of weeks help me paint the bottom today.

After spending all day painting, the boat looks really good now. We changed the oil as well and are all ready to splash tomorrow.