Saturday 14 December 2019

A different morning, indeed. It didn't rain last night as forecast but it being a Friday night there were ample boneheads roaring through the mooring field on their way to the bars in town. Sailors Return has a guest dock for boaters who want to zoom in for diner and drinks and more drinks. There are always one or two. Just like the characters who can't seem to get the fact that the marina has rules for dingys: all tie up painters must be at least 6' Long (some folks just gotta be right next to the dock); if they are leaving their boat on the mooring while they travel away they have to keep their dingy aboard their boat. They cannot leave it tied to the dingy dock. (Of course this doesn't apply to some people who feel that they are entitled to occupy a space on the dock and make it difficult for the rest of us). One or two docks are for inflatables only. I don't understand the rationale for that one myself but some folks not only don't understand they also ignore. The other thing that I am amazed at is that in spite of Florida's anchoring laws which state that you aren't allowed to anchor within 500' of a mooring field there is always someone who comes in, usually at night, and anchors. Perhaps they are waiting until tomorrow to contact the marina to get a mooring, perhaps they hope the marina has a dingy dock policy for anchored boats, or perhaps they plan to be away before anyone notices. There has been one boat anchored out near us since before we arrived. Yesterday we saw the Sheriff's boat pull up alongside of it but there was no one aboard. The cruising life is just one big soap opera, isn't it?

We made another trip to Publix for some supplies and bought yet another Christmas tree, this time a Rosemary plant trimmed into the cone shape of the season. That makes four trees we have now - two wooden ones from the Black Forest and two herbaceous ones from the grocery store.

While we were in at shore the wind piped up significantly and we had a very wet ride back to the boat with spray coming over the bow of the dingy. It didn't help that we were fully loaded with Barb and I and a heavy geezer cart full of groceries. We have decided that when we come in for the tour at one o'clock we will simply stay for the tree lighting ceremony and hope that the wind will die down by the time it comes to getting back to the other end of the mooring field. As it was we had a bouncy lunch aboard as the wind buffeted us about.

We came in to the marina early so we could dry off if necessary before we went on the tour. While we were sitting a lady whom we had met came by and asked us if we wanted any of the DVDs that they were putting on the give away table. So we scored about 10 movies that we hadn't seen before.

The museum trolly tour was aboard a golf cart on steroids, (see photo on today's post) one that could hold 20 passengers plus the driver/tour guide. The guide's name was Alice and she did an incredible job taking us through old Stuart and showing us the architecture and telling us about the history, most of which was 100 years or less but still there was a lot to hoist in. An hour and a half later we were brought back to the museum having been shown the downtown shopping district, the formerly segregated black area, the waterfront, the riverfront and got a full story about the old established families of Stuart, two representatives of which were riding with us aboard the trolly.

When done we had four hours to kill and Barb didn't want to go back to the boat so we stopped in at the Sailors Return for a couple of drinks that we didn't have to mix or clean the dishes after and a couple of plates of appetizers.

We are killing time until the tree lighting ceremony at the marina where they had many delicious appetizers and egg nog, sangria, wine and beer etc. The marina goes to great lengths to things for the guests. We watched them bring by tray after tray of appetizers including shrimp, deviled eggs, mini sandwiches, mini tortes, etc. We each brought an unwrapped toy for the toy drive organised by the Stuart Police Department. The Marina supplies everything else - food and drinks - what a nice treat for the slip owners and transients!

I am going to post this now but if anything exciting happens at the ceremony I will include it in tomorrow's post.