Update 2/2/2010 - Jacksonville to Ft Myers Beach

Greetings from Ft Myers Beach

As you can see we have left cold snowy Maine behind. Unfortunately it has been colder than normal here although low 70’s are far better than winters in New England. January has gone by like a rocket shot. We spent the last week of January visiting with friends and working on both our house and Steve’s. We had a nice dinner with Eldon and Dianne on Thursday night and on Friday night I did a program at Centerboard Yacht Club on cruising the great loop. On Saturday we went to a birthday party for our friend Larry Clough which was also attended by a number of our boating friends/ Sunday was spent with our sons and then on Tuesday (1/12) we flew back to Jacksonville to pick up the boat. It was around 40 degrees when we arrived and we were pleased to find the heat in the boat running. The boat was in good shape when we found it.

After a day of errands and provisioning, we set out for St Augustine, fighting the current much of the time. We were met in St Augustine by my brother Ron who would be traveling with us for most of the next week. From there, we had a good run with the current to Daytona Beach. We took a short walk on the beach and then enjoyed a nice dinner with our friends Bruce and Ellie. The next day we had another good run. Strong winds and heavy rains were forecast for that evening so we went into the marina in Titusville and took a short walk/ We found a good bakery but failed in our quest for Ron (a railroad buff) to see the trains which run close to the marina.

We set out the next day for Cocoa planning to either stay at the park dock or anchor out. Unfortunately we found the park dock to be fully occupied. and the winds were again very strong. We had a 20 degree heel from the winds on the boat some of the time!
Therefore we opted to into Melbourne Harbor and stay at the Marina there. We arrived in the middle of a sailboat race and had to dodge the boats trying to start and moving quickly under shortened sail. We had a nice walk around Melbourne, finding the Ice Cream shop but once again missing the trains for Ron.

The next day we went into Vero Beach which is one of our favorite stops. The weather had warmed up enough for shorts. We took a walk on the beach, splashing our feet in the water and enjoyed another good happy hour at The Pearl.

After Vero, we stayed at the Harborage Marina in Stuart for almost 2 weeks. During that time we shopped to a new home that our son Bill could stay in, We also had several nice dinners with both Alan and Susan from Kaos and Bob and Allie from Bali Motu both at their homes and at restaurants. In addition, we took a little time to enjoy the pool at the Harborage. Our search may have been successful. We made an offer on a property which was accepted. However, the seller is a government agency which repossessed the property and we have now been over a week dealing with various versions of paperwork. I can’t believe anyone would want these people to be controlling their healthcare! Hopefully the process will come to a successful conclusion.


From Stuart we proceeded across the Okeechobee Waterway. The first day was a short run to Indiantown where we stopped as the lake was too rough to cross that day. When we hooked up the electricity, the circuit breaker tripped immediately and I spent the rest of the evening trying to find a short in our system. It turned out the problem was the GFI breakers that were part of their system. The next day we crossed the lake accompanied by Toucan under acceptable but not idea conditions as the waves were around 2 feet with occasional larger waves. The crossing took about 3 hours and we were glad to get to the other side although it really hadn’t been that bad. We stopped at Moore Haven that evening and tried to go to a Mexican restaurant that had been recommended to Toucan. We found it closed and wound up with Pizza as a substitute. The next days run was good, and we stopped that afternoon at the Park at the Franklin Lock just in time to avoid the rain. The park is small but nice.

The last day on the Okeechobee started under partially sunny skies but soon clouded over and it was raining by the time we passed Fort Myers. The rain let up as we reached Ft Myers Beach and the sky lightened so we decided to fuel up then rather than wait until morning. (Ballard Oil in Ft Myers Beach is one of the best places to fuel up in Florida) The rains came back quickly and we got very wet taking on fuel. We had planned to pick up a mooring ball but we were offered the fuel dock for the evening so we stayed there rather than picking up the mooring in the rain and then having to launch the dinghy and go in and pay for it in the rain. As I write this, it is still raining but we have dried out.

Its supposed to be nice tomorrow!

Steve & Jean