Smaller projects continued while we waited for the contractors of the larger projects to complete their work. Stuart has an excellent repertoire of marine services and it seemed like we consulted almost all of them. Vic's, for example, is the place to go for repairing and refurbishing alternators, starter motors and such. Click on the…
Hot, humid, sunny marine weather – and everything else that continuous living aboard entails – can quickly wear out a boat's interior furnishings. In our case, the V-berth mattress had completely collapsed months ago, and the stern cabin's mattress was showing signs of significant wear. We spent the end of May and all of June…
By the end of May 2011 The Fox had traveled some 18,000 miles in its 10 years of life with us. It had kept us safe and comfortable but eight years of 24/7 life aboard had completely worn out the cabins' mattresses, the binding on our New Zealand wool carpets, and the upholstery on our…
Stuart is a nice town to visit by boat. Its revitalized historic downtown district with its shops, theatre and restaurants is a 10-minute walk from Sunset Bay Marina. It has public art – mostly bronze sculptures – here and there in small parks and in front of office buildings. You should get out of the…
After we got bounced around offshore going north from Ft. Lauderdale to West Palm Beach, Florida, we decided that our next leg would be on the dread Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). For those not in the nautical know, today's ICW is a channel about 3000 miles long that extends from Norfolk, Virginia in the north to…
Our two days in Ft. Lauderdale went very pleasantly. As terrible as the Floridians' behavior was on the water, every single person we met on shore went out of their way to be pleasant and helpful. We officially checked in to the US in person at the US Customs/Border Patrol office down by the commercial…
Wow, has it been almost a year since we sailed from Puerto Morelos, Mexico, to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida? That road trip we'd taken through the Yucatan Peninsula was one of our best road trips ever, anywhere. With that now behind us, on May 6, 2011, we checked out of Mexico* and started across the Yucatan…
The summertime climate of the southeastern US is not to my liking; it's generally too hot and humid, plus since we arrived on July 10, 2011, the area has been subject to a couple of heat waves. Daytime highs have been in the mid-90s (35C), and with the 60%-75% humidity the heat index pushes the…
Meet Lenny. He's about 4-1/2" of lizardly leanness, sort of a toasty-brown color with orange highlights. He has a prominent light-tan stripe down the middle of his back, with darker stripes along his sides. He's quick as lightning. He's a Southeastern Five-Lined Skink, Eumeces inexpectatus. There are lots of his type hanging around Florida, and…
The weather forecast for this trip – July 9-11, 2011, looked good: SE breezes generally in the 10-15-knot range, with calm seas making for a nice easy downwind sail. The thunderstorms, which during this time of year are automatically forecast to occur daily (whether they actually do or not), had disappeared. The sky was white…