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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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| Its got to be here somewhere... |
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.  |
| Add caption |
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.
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| 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.
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| Lots of boaters had the same idea |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Katherine and Bunny |
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| 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.
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| At Pirates Cove |
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| Bunny relaxing in the back |
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| 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.
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| Jack was relegated to the salon due to allergies. He is not happy about that. |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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!
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
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