Our theme song, Knee Deep In Paradise

The end to our first week in Stuart FL

And what a beautiful finish to a wonderful warm week in the sunshine state
during the week Jim started to tackle those nasty dining chairs first sanding them
The guys taking a break and watching a Cat boat that the 40kt winds got a hold of, see next picture.
oops Cat boat picked up a mooring rope in his rudder unfortuately another boat was attached. No real damage to either boat but Sea Tow to the rescue took hours for them to get there.
This is what the guys were doing for a few hours as the wind blew in. One boat at a time. Adjusting lines and fenders.
These divers took a look at the bottom of our boat for us. The report had no surprises. zincs need replacing, shaft and props in great condition, Bottom needs a cleaning but not that bad. It will need new bottom paint in the near future. SO now the bottom is clean and the zincs replaced.

Stuart Fl Sunset Bay Marina

Weather has been extremely nice its been in the 80's everyday since we arrived. This marina is beautiful all newly built in 2009, new everything. Very boater friendly, entertainment at the restaurant every night, the marina has a shuttle that takes you to many different stores including home depot, Publix (groceries), Walmart, and some other stops twice a week. They have a meet and greet every Sunday (pot luck) , a ladies social afternoon, and other social gatherings, where people can meet on a beautiful patio area with a gigantic grill, and rocking chairs all around the porch. This Sunday is a Superbowl party in the Club House a social on the patio and other assorted dock parties.


If your planning on using these facilities plan ahead the place is packed. The mooring field has 70 mooring balls and there's 128 slips at the marina, free dinghy dock and a pump out boat that comes around every week.



We went out for some GREAT pizza with Pete and Jerri (5 o'clock) a couple we met a week ago in Melbourne, they are here at Sunset Bay for a month or so. It was a very nice night, when we returned to the marina we all grabbed some wine and met up again in the porch area, shared boating adventures and rocked the night away.

Week 16 We have a schedule.... of sorts

sunset in Fort Pierce
That was a mighty big fish
big fish still moving around

So, if you are a member of the AGLCA one of the first thing they advise, schedules while boating are meant to be broken due to all the unknowns. While we have never been people to schedule much of anything, we thought maybe some type of time line would give us some focus. So here it is, tomorrow we leave Fort Pierce and travel to Stuart (a whopping 25 mile trip) there we shall tie up for a month and consider our southern bound trip complete for this winter. From there we will have 2-3 weeks to travel North back to Jacksonville where we will have some work done to the boat (that's about 250 miles). We will then go home for a couple of weeks while the boat is being hauled out and work done. Once we return, we will then have 4 weeks give or take, to travel to the AGLCA rendezvous in Norfolk VA (2nd week of May) that is a 720 mile trip to ICW mile marker 0. We are also planning to do the Dismal Swamp this time around. We will be in Norfolk for 1 week (scheduled). From there we continue north. The only other stop we really would like to do is Washington DC. While there are many other stop overs we hope to hit, these are the big ones. We figure we will be at NYC or on the Hudson River sometime in June.

So this seems to be the goal, for now, and the immediate one is Stuart tomorrow! We shall see how this works for us, stay tuned.

Fort Pierce great stop over plan on a Friday/Saturday stay

And entertainment as well
all kinds of fruits,vegies,pastry and breads,plants and flowers
lots of food mostly mexican, cuban and BBQ cooked to order
AHHH crusty bread

WOW more than just a farmers market (Sat-8am to 12noon) Lots of crafters with unique products. Food galore! very nice day, traveling with a pet? you will blend right in. Its an easy walk right into downtown many resturants and stores. If your looking for a supermarket its a taxi ride away. We will be here 1 more day, tomorrow we will look at the charts to plot out where where we will head to next, looks like it will be Stuart which is a jump off for the Bahamas. We will not be heading there this year, that is the plan for next winter though.

Melbourne to Fort Pierce

This is an island complete with firepits and picnic tables for boaters to enjoy
got 3 of them there now if i can catch them out of the water
Cocoa beach Pier

We headed out of Titusville on Thursday traveled 50 miles to Melbourne it was a beautiful day to travel. Spent the night at Melbourne Harbor had a late lunch (meal of the day) at Ickabods right at the marina great food! Went back to the boat for drinks and met up with a very nice couple from California who spent a couple of months at Pope Island in Ma. we ended up on their boat (named 5 o'clock) for docktails it was a pleasant evening. We both left the next morning, us heading for Fort Pierce and they are booked for a month in Stuart.

Traveling today we had dolphins playing in our wake on and off most of the day, they are so fun to watch and very difficult to photograph.

We will be here for 3 days and then on to Stuart/Jupiter area not sure where yet we will just take it day to day.

Week 15 Titusville Tornados? & Kennedy Space Center

Yesterday we visited the Space Center it was a nice day spent with Ashley and 68 degrees! But today sadly, we went to Orlando so Ashley could fly back home. We had hoped to do a bit more with her but timing her departure due to incoming storms in New England cut her trip a bit short. And as luck would have it was in the upper 70's today however a storm was brewing and by 6pm it was very windy very rainy, thunder and lightening and the threat of tornado's eekkkk! as it turned out no tornado's turned up here but it was still a bit scary! They did spot some tornado's 1 was in Cocoa Beach and we had been there earlier in the day. It is still raining but we hope to leave tomorrow heading to Melbourne then to Fort Pierce, we have reservations at the City marina for 3 days as they have their Seafood Festival on Saturday and the Farmers Market on Sunday along with crafters selling their wares. From their who knows where we shall land next. Pictures to follow once we move as downloading here is much to time consuming.
A special thank you goes out to Chip for taking care of the house and dog and to Ron and Nancy for the special time spent with Ashley and transporting her to and from the airport. Thank You all!