Thursday 28 November 2019
Our first night at the mooring was remarkable, primarily from my perspective, at how warm it remained through the night. Not sweltering, but nicely comfortable. So much so that I have set aside the sleeping bag liner that had been an absolute requirement if I didn’t want to freeze at night, until now. Barb says that if this keeps up we can set aside the sleeping bags as well and just use the sheets on the bunk.

Our potluck contribution was to have been a tray of brownies that Barb has already had some practise making. Unfortunately she got distracted and they were slightly burned so we had a trek into the only grocery store open today, the Fresh Market, to buy substitutes. Don’t tell anyone. We are going to pretend that we made them.

First thing this morning, Barb, brilliant creature that she is, consulted Dr Google and discovered that HR valves have the ability to be in an inflation position and a deflation position. I had it in deflate. Hmmm. Do you suppose that might be why it wouldn’t hold air? I examined them, made the necessary adjustments and guess what? They now hold air. Who’d a thunk it?!

Also, here is an in-blog note for Julia. Julia, Kayte tells us that you are reading the blog. I am very happy to hear that. Please let me know if you find any spelling or grammar mistakes and ask Kayte to show you how to post a comment if you don’t already know. Love to hear from you.

Now back to our regular programming.

Barb startled me a bit this morning by pointing out that we have been on this cruise now for two months. Two months! Well, if nothing else we have at least arrived in Florida. Now I don’t feel that we are in such a drive to make time south. I remember on our first cruise that we spent the whole winter in Gulfport on the Gulf Coast and never left the US and had a great time. I don’t believe that will satisfy us at this stage in our cruising career but if we hang out in Florida until after Christmas and slide over to the Bahamas and start to work our way south in January to see how far we can get.....well that will suit me fine.

As for this marina, it is all the positive things that I remember it to be - bright, friendly, clean, etc and as I have already stated it is in the community of Stuart. The only small negative thing that I could mention is the apparent lack of dingy dock etiquette. When you bring your dingy into the dock you are supposed to leave your painter at least 6’ long so others can also get to the dock. This seems to be something that the other boaters don’t understand. The other thing is that there is space for inflatable dingys and space for non inflatables. Again, that ain’t what folks seem to pay attention to. Annoying but not the end of the world.

The Thanksgiving Dinner was really very interesting. First it was incredibly well organized and coordinated by staff and a couple of long term boaters. It was the first time we discovered that there are a number of boats here that are true dock queens. They never move. In fact their crew lives aboard and work somewhere in town. Indeed, one of the shopkeepers that Barb dealt with yesterday during our walkabout was one of them. Judging from the age and physical infirmity of a number of the people attending, and from some of the snippets of conversation that I heard, I think that there were a number of attendees who no longer are active boaters but come back to events like this to renew acquaintances and relive past glories. Ain’t nothing like older people for memories and long chats. This is great! The photo with the day’s post is Barb’s head but in the background there are a number of the folks sharing the meal.

And what a meal! Folks who are guests here brought side dishes and deserts and the marina provided the main course, the turkeys who made the supreme sacrifice. We were the odd folks out in that we didn’t know anyone else whereas everyone else new someone that they ran into. As I said, this is a real boating community. The only thing missing is a cash bar. Even with reduced prices they would make a killing! As it was we were stuffed! We went for a post diner stroll to help settle the meal and thanked heavens for the 2.5 mile walk this morning. And we only ate a fraction of what most of the rest of these people ate. You’d think they hadn’t eaten for a month.