Salvio Sails!

Judging by the fancy pants high rise condos on the west side and the plasticine mansions on the east, I’d say this lake is worth plenty. (The anchorage is spacious, the bug count nil, and the neighbors are friendly: priceless.)

We had another lovely day getting from A to B. Waking to a gusty morning in Peck Lake, we mosied through our morning routine (leisurely coffee and breakfast in the cockpit followed by not-so-leisurely finishing up of the Monopoly game down below (I won for the first time in history, but apparently no one in this family wants to talk about it), and then schoolwork).

Our 25nm day today included hauling out partial jib for the first downwind stretch (after so long to get to this point, Bill Murray’s “I’m sailing!!” whilst strapped to the mast in What About Bob was the only thing going through my mind for 30 full minutes), which was satisfying to a higher-SOG extent, but frustrating for the inevitable tacking and trim necessary for waterway weaving.

After we rolled the sail back in for our first of six bridge passings, Andy had three separate manatee sightings while the rest of us scrambled to catch glimpses of glistening manatee backs as they resubmerged. We also saw seemingly every other Hinckley jet boat ever produced tied up in front of slick houses, and a TON of boat traffic.

 

Most of the traffic was welcomed for a good measure of people/boat watching, but as we were waked by a large boat flying by a mere 8 ft off our side which sent people and things flying, we were soured a bit by the nearly-always true truism of inverse relationships of engine size (or truck height/size for you landlubbers) to, er… other body parts and general confidence. An easy lesson in general courtesy was dispatched to the girls when they came up after the mayhem.

We dried things off in the sunny sunshine and steamed ahead to Lake Worth, where we have dropped the hook, walked into town (A1A in Florida- joy of joys), and are settling down for two nights so that Andy can replace the starter tomorrow, which I know will be a real hoot for him.

We escaped the trains! Night one of our time in Florida (save for our Naples sojourn) to sleep without the feeling that a 45-car freight train isn’t bearing down upon my pillow; I’m far more excited about it than anyone else. I didn’t realize that those things had so intensely become my nemeses.

We are in a gorgeous ‘bulb’ off of the ICW called Peck Lake, and Florida has never looked so good: the still sweetness of mangroves and palms, only a few other boats in the anchorage, a dinghy hop to shore to sneak under an arbor of sea grape to the expanse of white sand beaches, and did I mention that I haven’t heard a train?

We arrived here this afternoon after a beautiful and uneventful trip from Stuart. We wove our way out of the St. Lucie inlet under a constant stream of private jets (who are all of those people?!) and past their mansions (seriously, WHO?! The locale just doesn’t make sense to us..) to enter the Intercoastal and to ‘hang a right’. We saw a pod of dolphins, osprey, and plenty of herons, egrets and goofy-as-ever pelicans. (Fun fact: a pelican can hold up to 3 gallons of water in its pouch, if need be.) The best part of our fairly short journey is that the water has shifted from the molasses ick of the Okeechobee waterway to water clear enough to -gasp- see through! At least down to the third rung of our swim ladder, which seems like a huge step in the right direction.

As it turns out, Violet simply needs a stack of paper and a pair of scissors to make her world go round, so she spent the travel time down below mincing construction paper into a lot of little pieces that all have detailed meaning and specific purpose. She came above to explain each intracacy as we were bopping about getting ready to set the anchor, a distraction not necessarily welcome but at least we now all know how to get to Cheetah’s house and all about the new garland she’s stringing.

Upon arrival we yipped with glee at our surroundings, jumped into Flipper (surprise! the dinghy’s been named) and headed ashore.

Afternoon on the beach, sun showers on deck, a perfect sunset, a delicious dinner and a game of travel Monopoly with the smallest bills I have ever seen, and like that, we’re toast. ‘Til tomorrow!

We see blue skies this morning after a wild and wooly night in the anchorage. Some sort of emergency onshore yesterday evening brought what sounded like dozens of emergency vehicles to a scene quite close to the shore. Either a news or police helicopter buzzed overhead, deflecting the many private jets coming into the nearby airport far and wide; the whole scene was quite exciting. As soon as the hubbub died down the trains began for the night. Lots of horn blasts as they make their way through downtown, and car after car (after car) rumbled over the bridge and out of then blessedly out of earshot.

Cue sound sleeping until the storm blew in with force. Rain lashed the boat sideways, lightening struck, thunder boomed, and our little dinghy happily slapped the waves under her while bouncing on the little ‘sea’  that had kicked up. The girls slept through all of it, and though my favorite sleeping weather is heavy rain when I’m cozy and warm under cover, I was wide awake watching the sky light up with the crazy lightening.

 

Now that we’ve chamoised the boat and I’ve utilized my ‘reading nook’ in the cockpit for my first cup of coffee, we’re into our day’s tasks. The girls are doing schoolwork (no February break for them!), and Andy is biking to return the new (used) outboard engine bracket, to either have it replaced (which would mean ordering a new one), or to have them fix the faulty bracket we were sold. (The threads are stripped on the piece that needs to be tightened onto the engine itself- helpful!)

Yesterday Andy took advantage of the marina’s free bikes to bike 20+ miles around town to pick up the engine bracket and to find ‘the starter guy’ to pay for the new starter (the ‘shop’ doesn’t take credit cards, so cash had to be delivered pre-order- sounds legit, right?). (We were at the playground (again) while he was biking hither and yon, and bade our friends farewell after another 3 1/2 hour session on the merry-go-round.)

Our plan today once we have all of our parts gathered- mechanical, grocery and otherwise, is to get our holding tank pumped out (delish), fill our water tanks, and either head out this afternoon, or wait for an early morning exit. The non-plan plan is working out for most, apparently; no one seems too antsy at any given point except for me. I am very much ready to be floating on clear waters.

How is it that I can successfully (and ridiculously) stay awake and lucid until midnight and beyond in the cold dark depths of a Maine winter, and yet 9pm rolls around here in Florida and I feel like anyone standing in the way of my bed was put there to torture me for some previous wrong doing? When the fun starts early, it comes to a near-comatose halt early as well, I suppose.

Today the Valentine mom/dad fairies brought new mini stuffies and candy for breakfast (or something like that), and then we headed into the marina for their complimentary brunch before walking to the farmers’ market in town.

Since we were stuffed from brunch we came out empty-handed, but only just barely, as Lily was working her magic with the woman at the SPCA table and her crate of kittens. She left the table saying “Next year I’m bringing money- they were only $14!” as if her lack of cash was the only hindrance to sharing our tiny 34 feet with another living creature.

After another round at the playground (which is growing on us parents, oddly enough), we headed back in time to catch an offer to not only play in a friend’s pool, but to be picked up to do so, since we are now car-less nomads.

Once again we got to play while Andy worked, and as I watched the girls swim the day away, he successfully fixed our generator and got it started. (Only to find that it offers our system a warned-against reverse polarity, but alas, details details..)

The afternoon stretched into later afternoon, which stretched into our two families going to dinner, and our kids now having sleepovers at their place. It’s really odd to be here without them, and even the dinghy ride out we felt like we forgot something ashore. Meanwhile, I’m 100% sure that they haven’t given us a second thought, so all is ultimately well. It’s amazing to me that we lived within a mile of this family for years on the island, and yet are getting to know each other for the first time down here. Evidence yet again that life is always wackadoo, and almost always in the best way.

I’ll leave you with this guy, who popped up under our feet today and looked like he was waiting for a beer:

The new marina is very tidy.There are about 200 to 300 other boats at the marina.  Today was a very busy day. We did not have a car so we had to walk everywhere. We started on the river walk to a private birthday party with a bounce house. It was very tempting to go on but we had to go to the bigger playground. While up in maine you are freezing, down here we are eating ice cream.

Back to Mom, as Lily’s appetite for dinner outweighed her interest in carrying on in the blogosphere. She barely made it through the meal before flagging; they ran hard today. (And ate ice cream, so she was dead serious about the situational differences between Stuart and home, I might add.)

It was more than lovely to wake up to ‘mooring sounds’ (dinghies tooting past, wakes lapping the hull from passing speed boats in the channel, etc), and it was lovelier still to see our solar panel soaking up the rays and dropping amps into our bank. With our strings of AA-powered LED lights as our main light source for the cabin, and the decision to keep dinner dishes unwashed until daylight (which disgusts me, I’ll admit), we’ve been happy to draw very little power in the evenings, but regardless, it was nice to see that with conservative usage we’ll be able to keep up for the most part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a couple of hours of sourcing parts (starter, dinghy mount piece) and learning that we’ll be here through the long weekend, we went ashore for a walk. The River Walk is a great boardwalk along -you guessed it- the river. The St. Lucie river to be exact, and it dumped us out right in the old part of town, which is a charming set of streets with all of the ice cream, t-shirt and collectible shops you would expect. We searched high and low for a store with postcards and came up empty, remarkably, so you’re not getting one from Stuart, in case you were waiting.

A great lunch out, eight million hours at the playground with friends (the best one we’ve found is within walking distance, so that’s a major bonus), showers ashore and little else accomplished except total exhaustion.

Tomorrow’s goals are to enjoy the marina’s Valentine brunch, find the farmer’s market that’s nearby, and for personal measures I plan to put a major hurt on my book while sitting in the cockpit drinking coffee. Dream big!

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:           

Well, guess what? We’re still on pavement. The two dogged mechanics worked all day on installing, aligning and tweaking both our shift and seal, and yet they didn’t quite manage to complete the task before the day’s end. While the dollars signs plink before our eyes, so we spend another night in the air. It really is amazing how ‘okay’ we all are with the circumstances- our agility levels of running up the ladder and bending this way and that around the helm and under the davits whilst carrying the inevitable bags of groceries, toys, odds and ends are really getting honed. I feel like quite the nimble thing when I can get from car door to the galley in one swift movement without nailing some body part on something or other. (Trust me, those instances are few, and I have the bruises to prove it…)

 

 

 

 

 

I spent the day in The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens, dealing with the fun folks at the Genius Bar in their Apple Store. Though I was far from Fifth Avenue, I certainly wasn’t at the Bangor Mall either, and I must say that my dirty ‘boat’ jeans and t shirt felt a little out of place amidst the Henri Bendel-shopping clientele. I huddled in a corner and read Steve Jobs’ biography on a store iPad while I waited for the geniuses to genius the heck out of my busted screen and bewitched software, which they did with Jobsian panache.

The end to a monotonous day included a great walk/ride through the storage and work yards of the marina, and ended with a fun bonfire and cookout on the patio/lounge area.

Lily and I scavenged in the yard’s back 40 to find firewood, and found some amazing scenes straight from the newest joint Stephen King-Carl Hiaasen novel: wayward golf carts being strangled by jungly vines and stacks of old boat parts and dead weedwhackers being left for dead amid composting palm fronds. There was a stray aquarium waiting for its next victim, and Lily was particularly weirded out by a Coke bottle, sitting alert and ready on an old fence post that was leaning onto a stack of pink children’s bikes, long since forgotten. Staying in a boat yard too long makes for discovering the bits and pieces that are probably best unseen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow we’ve been promised the first launch of the day- cross all digits and extremities you have to offer!

Things are falling into a routine zone these days, even though we’re still not in the water. (Still. Not. In. The. Water… For God’s.Sakes, STILL not in the water…) We have breakfast, do school work-which is becoming enough of a regular thing that the girls roll into place in their different lists of tasks- and then we carry on with whatever activity we’ve worked out to meet the balance of keeping them occupied while forging through our own lists of boat duties.

Today it was math, writing, reading, crafting and then a bike ride/walk into town, followed by some stainless polishing, hull waxing and canvas waterproofing while the girls played.

I say daily how lucky we are to have kids that like each other, and man, do I mean it. They are so incredible in their imaginative play, and so consistently good to each other that they often get so lost in their worlds that I have to rattle them out of it for lunch requests or rallying cries to go somewhere. It can be Playmobil people or creatures, shells and sticks or coconuts, but no matter the components of the world they’re in, they’re fully immersed. I call it the ‘How ‘Bout’ game.

“Lily, how ’bout I’m at a store, and you’re the owner, and how ’bout I’m wondering if you have any giraffes, and…” “Yeah, and how ’bout I say “Not today, but….” and on and on and ON. This also applies to conventional play dates at home that I eavesdrop on, which I love hearing, but the two of them really have the concept down pat, and it makes me so happy on so many levels. When it comes to pulling me in, I must admit, I’m not a how ’bouter. I’m a ‘eh, really?’ kind of negatron that often doesn’t get asked back. “Why are we shopping for giraffes, anyway?!” “BeCAUSE, we are!” Dubious look from Mom halts game for an agitating amount of time, and then I’m edged out…

ANyway, they How ‘Bouted for two hours while we worked on various jobs, and Andy brought the finished shaft back to the boat from the machine shop. A big ‘whew’ is that it installed perfectly well without removing the rudder post (a fear that we had going from a two piece shaft to a one piece). We’re technically on track to have it in place, to have the new dripless seal installed and to launch tomorrow afternoon, finger’s crossed. Since the scheduling of boat progress is not often embedded in the calendar of logic or common sense, ‘technically’ and ‘reality’ might not align, but again, we’re hoping for the best.

We met friends at the playground in Stuart this afternoon, where the kids played for three great hours. The two sets (each had a friend their age) played both separately and apart, while we Moms had a grand old time chatting and catching up; it’s nice to add more adults into the mix of the days, for sure.

We’re still not sure which direction we’ll head in once we splash, since the winds aren’t cooperating for a Gulf Stream crossing any time soon. One concern that we have is to get over there and have this off-year weather pattern continue to not give us a window to get back in time either. That said, we’ve opened the door of possibility to crossing the Okeechobee Waterway to get to the west coast of Florida, where we’d head south to the Keys and Dry Tortugas before heading up the east coast, in a big loop. We have a couple of more days to decide what to do, but either way will be an adventure that we’re excited for.

Found this pinned to the bulletin board at the marina, and it hits the nail on the head for a good chuckle:

 

Hi this is Lily. Today we went to the Children’s museum which  isn’t like a history museum it is a place where you can play. At this museum there was a pirate ship On the pirate ship there was a cannon that was really loud and it sort of hurt my hands from holding my ears.

After that we went to the other part of the museum. There was a car and tools that you had to fix. And then we went to the store. Violet got 2 big bags full of plastic food and bread, my mom got 1 small bag with stuff to make a stew. I was the clerk.

Then we went to the garden/playground. Had a picnic lunch on the beach and  did some gymnastics on the beach and grass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Violet was really  the finder of the baby palm tree. We saw a teeny tiny coconut on it then dada came and picked us up. When we got home Violet and I went into a boat yard right next to us and found 2 more coconuts so now i have 7 coconuts!!!!  We were about to go up to the boat when dada said do you want to crack open the coconut. And i said yes so he got the hammer and another tool that i have never seen before and he started to tear that coconut right apart.

we opened it after dinner and had the milk and the coconut and then i was  stuck here writing to you guys. (Which i really enjoy 🙂 )

It’s official, the boat has a name and knows where its people are from; we got the decals on today.

It came out well, and it’s definitely fun to round the corner in the yard and see our old girl identified.

We are lucky to have friends who keep their boat here at the same marina for purposes of a similar annual family plan. (It was a great coincidence to learn about shortly before we left; it’s a tiny place in the middle of nowhere!) They thoughtfully keep bikes down here for their kids to use while they gear up each year, and they offered them to the girls to use while we’re here waiting. Boatyard mobility has raised the fun bar even higher, and they spent the afternoon zooming this way and that while we worked in and around the boat.

On one of our spins around the docks, we came upon our first gator of the trip, lurking in the mud at the edge of the inlet. It was a little one, maybe 3 or 4 feet in length, but big enough to not want to stick around and see if it came much closer. (Truthfully, I think that the effects of what that water could do to bare skin may rank up there with the damage that little alligator could inflict- blech.)

Tomorrow we’re keeping our fingers crossed that our shaft will be ready for pick up (it’s hard to make that sentence sound clean- seriously), and we’ll do our final prepping, shopping, stowing. The ‘can we fit it?’ game continues. As I was reading to V tonight and Andy was tearing up the girls’ mini settee to get into his tool storage, she said “Guys, this is a little boat, and we have a LOT of stuff.”. You nailed it, kid.