Indiantown, over and out.

As Andy said as we shoved off- the umbilical cord has been cut! Praise everything that worked toward it, it has. We had an easy launch, a successful sea trial, a series of goodbyes to the various dogs that we’ve grown to love (with a nod to their people as well), a mock tearful ‘ciao for now’ to the rubber python that Violet has been inexplicably attached to (it’s been artfully wrapped around a palm tree on the docks, no doubt to scare the willies out of passersby, unless, of course, you’re Violet), and we shoved off around 1pm (or 1300 hours, if we were trying to confuse sister Vanessa).

Our afternoon was an uneventful trip down the waterway, passing fancy schmancy homes with screened-in pools and artfully arranged palm tree landscaping while we all got our bearings of our newly mobile vessel.

Uneventful, of course, until we got to Saint Lucie Lock, where we tied off, shut the engine down, and got ready to drop the 12 feet necessary to steam out of the eastward side. All went off like a hitch until we tried to start the engine- no go. Nothing doing, nothing turning over. The lock operator was great, and let us know that we could take our time as nothing was coming or going (thus requiring a lock change). As I was busy imagining our first night out of Indiantown spent either sitting through countless lock changes in the ‘pool’ or calling Boat US to come tow us out, the aforementioned operator suggested a clever trick his friend offered him when his car starter was peetering out: bang on it with a hammer. He was such a nice guy we figured we ought to humor him, and whaddya know. One whack on the starter with a wrench by Andy while I hit the switch, and voila, engine started. Out we went, once again cursing the former owner’s name as we planned for sourcing a new starter. Boats-the greatest.

We tucked into Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart for the afternoon/night, where we’ll happily spend tomorrow and tomorrow night while we try to hunt down a starter, and find a way to fix the piece of integral engine mount from our outboard that Andy broke when he was tightening it onto the dinghy transom (boats! the greatest!). Sunset Bay Marina:Indiantown Marina is about like Saks Fifth Avenue: WalMart, so we’ll be just fine hanging here and walking the docks to check out the lives of people with bigger boats than ours. (Needless to say, this is all of them.)

Being on a mooring and actually floating freely is a novelty in and of itself, and our first beers in the cockpit upon arrival reminded us why we are doing this: to drink. Just kidding! (Sort of.) THIS is why: