Saturday, January 2, 2016

We are all settled into Fort Pierce City Marina. If you are in the area, please call. It would be great to see you! Our slip is on B Dock in the new section just outside the great bar / restaurant Tiki Bar. The docks originally in this spot blew away in the twin hurricanes that devastated the area in 2004. I mean they literally blew away, littering the ICW along the Indian River with debris. 

The Corps of Engineers built about seven little islands to protect the Fort Pierce waterfront and allow for the installation of new floating docks. The whole set up is beautiful. The docks are cement with large rubber covered piers that the docks float around.

Dick and Deanna dock at Vero Beach
but they come to visit sometimes
We are on the same dock with fellow loopers Jim and Joy Pankey on Jim’s Joy and Joe and Edie Ruben on SeaQuel. On C dock across the way we have Michael and Judy Hechtkopf on One September and Bill and Eve Gribble on Just BilEve. Dave and Nancy Stecker on Miss NanSea, their refurbished 55’ Fleming were on C dock but they left to travel to Key West a week or so after we arrived. It is a nice social family we have here.
New docks are beautiful

Our routine is to walk in the morning at about 8am. This gets the blood moving before it gets too hot. I like the exercise part but I am having trouble focusing on anything but the current moment. I have lots of work piling up that must be attended to. It is time for a new routine after the walk.

There was some controversy about these docks just before we arrived. As new docks the electric box conform to new requirements. They have GFCI connections, those outlet receptacles with the little buttons you press to control the outlet when it is around water. Evidently boats built prior to around 2000 or so are not wired for these kind of power receptacles causing all sorts of onboard electrical issues. Miss NanSea had serious electrical problems at first when they hooked into the new power pedestals. But we are finding the new GFCI pedastals to be no problem with our 2001 boat.

We are having other  
Its got to be here somewhere...
problems though.

Remember our GPS autopilot went wacky on the way down the Erie Canal. Kermit was on the phone with Garmin repeatedly and they tried every possible action they could imagine without visiting in person. We got it working a little bit for the trip down to Fort Pierce but it wasn’t right. Garmin acknowledged the problem was under warrenty. They have been great about it. Upon arriving in Fort Pierce they sent a repair team out to investigate.

They ripped up every possible part of the boat looking for the autopilot doohickey that directs the GPS. Guess where they found it? In the master bathroom installed right new to the overhead light in the ceiling panel! Yes, directly below the helm which is good but right next to the overhead light which, being a light, is magnetic. You think a magnet can’t mess up autopilot? Yup.
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We had 3 people on our boat for two full six hour days. Everything was ripped out in the master cabin and bath. They ripped out every piece of furniture in the salon and on the back deck looking for the doohickey. Kermit was all over this. Evan Evans came over to supervise cuz why not.  Garmin put in new autopilot and some other parts thinking this will fix the problem.

Evan on the road with us
After Christmas we got a little stir crazy and took the boat out for the day. We traveled to Stuart with Bunny and Evan by boat – great weather and great water down the ICW which is the Indian River down here. Bunny and Evan suggested this place at Port Salerno, Pirate’s Cove. It felt great to move in the boat again. 
Lots of boaters had the same idea

This pontoon boat is sinking. The tow boat is coming to help.
Imagine a pontoon boat on the ICW?
We left the dock at about 10am. Evan was so excited to be on the boat. They sold their boat a few years ago but you can’t take the boater out of a good sailor. 

Critter alert - dolphins!!
There were a lot of boats on the water. The cove where we turned off the ICW is at the entrance to the canal leading to Lake Okachobee. That is how we will get to Fort Myers in January. There are lots of marinas around here, lots of pretty houses and some nice parks. Lots to see. We had snacks and settled in for a nice ride.


Katherine and Bunny
Evan and Bunny
Pirate’s Cove is a marina and resort combination. People use it as a destination for the winter and as a place to prepare for the crossing. The lady in the office was as nice as could be, even finding us a spot to tie up at the gas dock so we could walk over for lunch.


At Pirates Cove


Bunny relaxing in the back
Kermit let Evan drive. Every boater needs a fix now and then!
Lunch was wonderful. Bunny and I had shrimp po’ boys. I’ve been wanting to try this for a while. Evan and Kermit had the specials of the day. Evan had fish tacos which are on almost every menu and Kermit had a steak sandwich.
Jack was relegated to the salon due to allergies.
He is not happy about that.

The entrance to the canal is around this corner.
Nice park, huh? 
Bunny showed us a great anchorage that we will use for the first night prior to crossing the canal. We figure it will take 3 days to get to Fort Myers. First night in Port Salerno. Second night either at the entrance to the lake or on the west side of the lake. Third night in Fort Myers. There are five locks and shallow water so you can’t go too fast. At least that is what we are being told.


The bad part of this cruise was that about an hour into the trip traveling at our usual slow speeds (about 8 mph or so) the autopilot turned into Crazy Ivan again!! It is STILL BROKEN!!!! ACKKKKK…. Kermit got on the phone with Garmin while we were traveling but they can’t send someone out until after new years because of the back to back holidays. We aren’t moving until then anyway so it is not a problem. It is just VERY annoying. I will have Kermit write a piece about this problem with more technical information when we have the guys on the boat again.

In the meantime, when they come back out we are having a new media system put in. Not expensive but Kermit is frustrated about the tv situation. We have an air antenna that gets some really clear religious channels and two versions of public tv but only ABC and one version of FOX, fortunately not the political FOX news but the other one. We can't even get ESPN live streaming without having some cable service. So Kermit wants to get a new DVD player so we can pretend we get interesting tv again. Shouldn't be expensive but the pros can hook up the tv and dvd player to the Bose sound system that came with the boat. 

Kermit also went to the Marine Connection Liquidator store in town and found an unbelievable deal on the older version of the Fusion radio. It normally sells for about $700 but Kermit negotiated it down to $170!! With this system we can use the iPod run through the Bose speakers. We can also get radio stations if we want. The pros will install that this week too.  

But the autopilot situation has Kermit really frustrated. He said the other day, "let's get a new boat!!" I know that won't happen but you can tell his level of frustration. 

We saw the SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS-9 launch in Cape Canavral – 12/21/2015 – at about 8pm we were returning from an outing of some sort (can’t recall, doesn’t matter) walking down the dock when we saw a bright light, explosive in fact, in the northern sky. Turns out we saw the live launch of the SpaceX Falcon CRS-9 launch 11 ORBcom satalites off one rocket. Two stage rocket – the first stage will take the satelites into orbit. The second stage returned back to the launch pad – first time that has ever been done. We were not aware this was going to happen so it was thrilling to see the blast in the distance.
Falcon 9 OG2 M2 6
We saw a huge bright light to the North; not this picture
but you get the idea!

We didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late to pull out a camera. However the SpaceX website has the coolest explanation of what happened. Please watch this video. The thing you will notice first off (or rather the first thing I noticed) is the age of the people at SpaceX is very young. 

Very nice to see the young folks moving ahead with this important research. Also check out the casual clothing of these scientists. No uniforms, lots of blue jeans and facial hair. Also the notable inclusion of women scientists absent in the prior generations. Very cool.

Another thing that is interesting about this information is the liquid oxygen fuel. Unlike other rockets in past generations, this fuel is loaded in the last 10 minutes or less prior to the launch. Isn’t that interesting?

I will be on the lookout for next SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral in January. They will be launching a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with SES 9 communications satellite. I would love to run up to Cape Canaveral to see that.

We decided not to go home for Christmas this year. I am not sure we will make the same decision next year. We really missed the family. A lot. I went to an Episcopal church, St. Andrews prior to Christmas but it was not the same. Family and friends make all the difference.

I our last post I talked about our Christmas Eve dock party built around the theme of the Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes. It was yummy. A great way to celebrate. When it was over, at about 8:30pm we sat in the dark and chatted over wine. Kermit mentioned that dock parties like this are the best thing about boating on Lake Erie (we miss our APYC friends!). But no one else has these kinds of friendly events. Can you imagine? That is so sad.

We were in bed by 9pm. We celebrated Christmas Day with Bunny and Evan at their clubhouse with their friends. It was a blast. I made pineapple upside down cupcakes. Two of the trays were yummy. One of the trays burned. Kermit kept sneaking samples until there were only a few left on the tray before we left. Evidently he filled the tray with burned ones without my knowledge because Bunny got a burned one. Too bad. The regular ones were very good. Just ask Kermit. He ate a bunch!

We are finding plenty of ways to entertain ourselves. Kermit watched the Holiday Boat Parade from Jim's Joy while I was out of town. The pictures are all fuzzy but you get the drift.

We discovered the Fort Pierce Jazz and Blues Society with jazz on Tuesday nights for $6. Wonderful! 
 

We go to the Farmers Market on Saturday and Wednesday afternoons.

Edie Ruben, Kermit and Katherine enjoying the water!
Joy and I went to help Bunny and her gang at the Notre Dame Mission prepare Christmas dinner on 12/22. We made green bean casselore, stuffing and cranberry sauce. Walmart was delivering the turkeys later in the day. Actually Joy and I opened cans of mushroom soup then Joy counted the right combination of cans of soup with fried onion rings. I sauted onions and celery for the stuffing then everyone pitched in to pull it all together in large aluminum foil trays that would be cooked later that day. 

We will come back again on Friday mornings to help out where we can. I think we slept in and missed the New Year's preparation yesterday but we were sleeping!

Bill and Eve Gribble
We went to the beach the other day too. It seems a shame that we’ve been on the boat since June and haven’t been in the water yet. So we pulled the cobwebs off the swim suits and went into the water at the Fort Pierce Inlet.  
Joe and Edie with Kermit in
the water. He refused to come out
 The water was sublime. We hung out, had a few beers, read a little then went out to eat at Archie’s, a Fort Pierce institution.

This gave us a chance to show Joe and Edie another part of Fort Pierce along Hutchinson Island.

We stopped and showed them the condo we used to own down from Bunny and Evan and the little marina set-up they have.

Image result for the colonnades fort pierce fl
The Collonades where Bunny and Evan live
While chatting with the gang over dinner one night we all decided to go see Billy Joel for New Year’s Eve. We ended up taking our truck with the Hechtkopfs, Rubens, Gribbles and us down to West Palm and back the same night, arriving home at about 3am. It was AWESOME!

L to R: Mike and Judy Hechtkopf, Katherine and Kermit,
Eve and Bill Gribble, and Edie and Joe Ruben at dinner
before teh concert
We parked at the Sunrise Mall in Sunrise FL then walked across the street to the BB&T stadium for the concert. The opening act was awful but the concert itself was sublime. Kermit and I skipped the opening act and had a (very expensive) beer at the only place in the stadium with tvs so we could watch at least the first half of the Michigan State game. Very disappointing. We had a better time watching Ohio State defeat Notre Dame and even Michigan defeat Florida. 

I know Billy Joel is down there somewhere...
The concert was AMAZING!
Our seats for the concert could not have been higher. I know everyone says this but we actually were in the absolute last row. Couldn’t get higher!! We were angled in such a way that we had a pretty good view of the stage. Billy Joel was about THIS big, literally if you put your fingers together he was about ¼ inch tall! 

The piano moved in circles all the time and he was so far away it took a few songs to realize that the piano moved! We could see him on the big screens behind the stage though. Nothing could dampen the excitement though! It was a great way to welcome 2016!


By the way, Billy Joel is a big boater. Not the kind with a huge yacht that someone else runs that he visits occasionally. He designs boats including a 57' commuter called Vendetta that he designed and had built. I saw another article saying it was up for sale in 2011. Here is a cool article from 2004 about his love of boats. 
http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/09/20/381144/index.htm

It appears his current boat is a 36' Argos, a Maine style picnic boat. Evidently Billy Joel was involved in the design of that boat too. Regular sized boats, just like ours!
http://www.maineboats.com/boat-launchings/ellis-patriot-36-argos

Here is the plan for January. I probably will come back to Ohio for a few days next week. Marissa is coming to visit 1/4 through 1/7!! YEAH I really miss her. We will take the boat to Fort Myers to visit friends and snowbirds on the gulf side later in the month. We are coordinating with some folks to go to the Bahamas in March. Plus I am still working. I try not to forget that... and so does my business partner Dan Toussant!

In the meantime, have a Happy 2016!





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