Still Here

Yeah, not much posting lately and zero pics. What a stupid blogger.

We arrived in Stuart, Florida, on Friday, May 13. Did one uncomfortable 51-mile day offshore from Ft. Lauderdale to West Palm Beach, pounding thru head-seas with a frisky Gulf Stream current shoving us right into the tall chop. Lots of water on deck. Lots of discomfort in cockpit.

So then we decided to try the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). We entered at West Palm Beach/Lake Worth Inlet, and spent the night at anchor in Lake Worth itself. Not a bad place; sort of felt like El Mogote in La Paz on the Baja Peninsula, except with fancier houses all around. Next day (the 13th) we drove north up the ICW from Lake Worth to Stuart. 26 miles. With a succession of 8 bridges to hail and request an opening. Lots of waiting. Lots of power boats everywhere disobeying basic nautical rules. Lots of slow driving thru very shallow water – at times, our 6' keel had only 2' of water under it — and that's in the middle of the dredged ICW channel.

Left the ICW at St. Lucie Inlet, turned westerly up the St. Lucie River aiming for Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart. Water got thinner. Only touched bottom once but almost touched bottom several more times trying to feel our way in by depth sounder alone. Seems that in these parts, the silting-in and lack of dredging has caused the charts (and thus the electronic chart plotters) to become badly out of date. One needs recent, local knowledge to travel 'round here and we ain't got it. Punch line: we later learned that due to lack of rain, the river's running 4 feet lower than normal. No wonder there's no longer a navigable channel.

That said, Sunset Bay Marina has deep enough water, and everything about it is very, very nice. We're here thru the end of June, to spend large dollars getting all kinds of well-deserved repairs and upgrades to The Fox after 10 years of sailing, 8 years of full-time living aboard & 4-1/2 years of full-time cruising. Such as: revised rigging, revised staysail, repaired main sail; refurbished wind generator; all new interior mattresses & upholstery; repaired and cleaned carpets; new cockpit cushions. And a lot more besides. I'll tell y'all all about it. Eventually.

m

2 responses to “Still Here”

  1. Tgthorson Avatar
    Tgthorson

    Hey guys, where are you? We’re headed to Ft. Lauderdale over the 4th of July to see Joyce and Mick on Rhumb Line..would luv to meet up with you! …gary/anna

    Reply
  2. sailnmuffin Avatar
    sailnmuffin

    Hey kids!
    Well, the refit is about half done – got the inner forestay installed but are still waiting for the repaired sails to reappear. Spare alternator & anchor windlass motor are refurbished & GB’s air-conditioner installation is working well. I’m close to finishing the new curtains & I’ve incorporated some of the molas I bought in San Blas into many throw pillows — but we’re still waiting for most of our seat cushions to get reupholstered so there are literally only 2 places to sit on the whole boat. But, it lookls like all will be finished by July 4 — too bad we’re scheduled to leave for Georgia on 6/29. So, we *might* still be here in Stuart at Sunset Bay Marina, just south of the Roosevelt Bridge on US 1, 615 SW Anchorage Way, 34994. We might still be in Slip C-6, maybe not as the marina manager has already told us there’s another boat arriving who has reserved that slip for the whole summer.
    Anyway, we’re likely to still be here; might be in a slip or might be on a Sunset Bay mooring ball. We’ll keep you in the loop.
    Meanwhile, since there’s no place to sit on the boat except at the sewing machine or nav station, we’re going to give ourselves a bit of a break tomorrow – 6/21 – & go seashelling at Sanibel & Captiva Islands over on the Gulf side near Ft. Myers. Well, *I’m* going seashelling, GB has vowed to chillax in the motel room and do absolutely nothing for a change. Come Friday 6/24, we’re going closer to your area – we need to get our KISS wind generator dusted & cleaned by the manufacturer, who’s based in Tarpon Springs. When we return to Stuart we might detour over to Orlando & maybe hit Gatorland — mostly because eveyone we mention it to, rolls their eyes & groans….
    m

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *