Day 193: Saturday, March 16, 2013

Port to Port: Stuart, Florida

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 0      Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First time using a courtesy bus; First time using a courtesy bike at a marina.

Mile to Mile: Today dawned sunny and calm – finally calm. The boats in the mooring field are laying in all different directions without a steady wind to line them up. Our main plan for the day was to take advantage of the courtesy van to Walmart (and other stores along Highway 1) to resupply a little. Or a lot. We can never get out of Walmart for less than $100 and today was no different. But we are set for the next week or more now.

We returned to the boat and stowed our treasures before going back to the marina to explore a little more. I borrowed a bike and road down to a nearby flea market to see what I didn’t need and Cindy went downtown to look into some of the shops again. I didn’t buy anything, surprisingly. We ended up meeting back at the marina at about the same time and sat on the steps and chatted with fellow boats including Joy and Howard while soaking up the warm afternoon sun. Joy had her arm in a sling – she fell yesterday on the sidewalk (not on the boat) and broke her arm in two places – ouch! Now, because of the idiocy of insurance, she will be flying home to get a permanent cast because their insurance won’t cover the hospital care here. Insane, but an all too common story.

The boats are getting bigger here. We wandered the docks for a little while and saw some pretty big boats – not Miami big, but much bigger that we’ve seen most other places.

We decided to cook dinner on the marina grill – its about 8’ long and is protected from the wind so we packed up our steak, potatoes, green beans and salad fixings (plus the computers and guide books) and dinghied back to the marina immediately met some fellow sailors from Roseville, Minnesota – we had planned to knock on their boat later this evening to say hi since they are moored a couple boats down from us. What a small world. They are staying here for the winter and will store there boat down the river for the summer and drive home. They shared some great information on places to stay on the way up the Intracoastal and fun sailing stories. They have a small sailboat too that they sail on Lake Pepin so we are kindred spirits.