Monday, December 15, 2008

Hi all-- Here's the news beginning on Monday of our last week of this part of the trip. Happily, the Indian River in the Cape Canaveral area of central Florida is wide and deep. Wide, we see often. Deep, not so much. It is not at all uncommon for the ICW to be a channel of 8-10 ft. depth in what appears to be a huge, wide body of water. Suddenly, you see a bird obviously standing on the bottom. Or you hear the depth sounder beep to say there is less than 4 feet of water under the bottom of the boat. Or you see a boat sadly lying in the mud. OOPS. With wide and deep, navigation was more relaxed than it has been and we each had some free time on Monday. Sure will be happy when the GPS is back. We found a boatyard in Sebastian River, FL that can do a 'short haul'--which means lift Young America out of the water so the right rear propeller can be inspected. On Tuesday morning Thomas put the straps around the boat and up she went. And the nut holding the propeller on the rudder shaft could be freely turned by hand! We are soooo happy that Fred rotates the rudder shafts from the engine room every morning. His hearing that telltale 'clunk' prevented learning about a big problem by losing the ability to steer when the prop fell off! In less than an hour the boat was back in the water, and Mike and Dave, the two a/c guys (who'd driven over from Tampa) came aboard to do their thing. They installed another blower plus gave Fred lots of good info. These are the guys who write the manuals explaining the systems! What great service. With all that, we were underway by 10:30 am. A big morning! By 4 p.m. we were at Ft. Pierce, FL, and what a beautiful city marina we found there. We've consistently gone to Municipal marinas when we find them, and have not yet been disappointed. At Ft. Pierce, we were treated to a music and light show that plays electronically from 6-10 every evening. It was very well done and lots of fun for lots of families. There was also an enormous Christmas tree surrounded by at least a gazillion pointsettas. Planted, no less. It was beautiful. Not to be outdone, YA is decked out with her wreath that came aboard in St, Augustine. Like all the municipal marinas we've visited, the area around this marina was clean, well lighted, had lots of shops and restaurants—and lots of people just walking, sitting, and taking advantage of a neat space! Hated to leave, but leave we did. Another place added to the “let's come back here” list. Wednesday was our last night 'out' on this leg of the trip, and it was spent near the Jupiter Inlet. The ICW runs pretty much along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Every so often, there will be an 'inlet'--opening to (or from) the ocean. These are the places where commercial ships leave and enter, and where boats like us can go 'outside' to make a run along the coast. Today we considered that in order to avoid the minute to minute navigating, the manatee 'slow' zones, and the bridges, but the weather decided for us. Wind and rain make the ocean choppy and uncomfortable—not to mention dangerous, so with south winds at 25 mph, we stayed 'inside' . By the way, Knute, the new anchor, rocks! He set himself in a second, grabbed the bototm and held, and pulled the boat to him. Very impressive! We thought we'd seen bridges last week! South Florida is (surprise!) very heavily populated and people in automobiles seem to want to cross the water everywhere! Imagine. Many of the bridges are 65' above the water, and present no problem for even the tall sailboats. Along this stretch, there can be as many as 6 bridges in just 10 miles, and at least half of them are less than 20' off the water. That is too low for us, so we just ride along and wait for the scheduled openings. One bridge tender read our home port(Newburgh) on the stern and told us she was from Middletown, NY. Fun. Despite the bridge and manatee delays, we arrived at the Ft. Lauderdale Commercial Blvd. Bridge before dark, and sure enough, on the fourth canal to the left, we saw MIRAGE docked with a long open space off her stern. Fred eased our Mirage in as Marilyn Markus, my high school classmate, caught the lines. Marilyn and I had talked at our 50th H.S, reunion last August, and when she invited us to come to Ft. Lauderdale and dock at her home, we happily accepted. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we've been catching up, eating, touring the city, visiting, eating, preparing the boat for a bit of a vacation, eating, watching the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Parade—from the upper deck of YA, and generally having a great time. Now it is Monday. We leave our floating home and fly to Newburgh tonight. We will spend the jolly Holidays at our 'vacation condo' with family and friends. Young America will stay here and await our return. We leave you with the understanding that right now there is a lot to be concerned about, and also a great deal to raise our hopes for the future. So please accept our best wishes for good health, prosperity and much joy as you celebrate this festive time of the year! We'll be back in 2009! Fred and Linda PS The GPS arrived Friday, is re-installed and seems to work fine. Hallelujah! A/C remains a bit of a problem. The new blower also works just fine, but now the unit drains lots of water onto the dinette floor. It does keep Fred busy!