Taurus Great Loop

 

We made it to Melbourne, FL, Taurus’s home for the next three and a half months!  Melbourne is also where our son lives, so we are going to get some good time in seeing him this winter. So great!!  We saw him after work and for dinner today.  It’s been too long. We need Covid-19 to be done please! We left Fort Pierce this morning and had an uneventful cruise.  We saw an old favorite - a tug pushing a barge! We saw some more electric wires crossing the bay for those in the barrier islands. Once we were settled in our new marina, Fred and I took a walk to the Eau Gallie Art District (EGAD). We walked through an older residential neighborhood. There were Aloe Vera plants that are humongous! Aloe Vera plants in the neighborhood near our marina Plus there were cactus There were a couple of historic signs And at the end of the night - Christmas lights!

We made it to the east coast of the ICW in Florida this morning. We left Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart in a Small Craft Warning. But do we listen to the experts?  Oh no, we forge on ahead. We wanted to stop for fuel and pump-out before the bridge opened up at 10 am (it opened on the half hours). So we left our slip at 9:00 anticipating we would have plenty of time.  The 20 kn. wind was blowing from behind the fuel dock, blowing us off of it. It took us three tries to get docked so we could get fuel.  Once we finally got docked, things went fast. They had a high speed fuel pump faster than any we’ve seen before. Pump-out also was quick. By the time we had paid, the open bridge horn sounded and boats started moving.  We pulled away from the dock and ended up being the last in line.  But we made the 9:30 opening, a half hour early on our schedule.   As we turned from the St. Lucie River into Hell Gate Point, we noticed our AGLCA (American Great Loop Cruisers Ass...

If you remember, in our Cabbage Key post I mentioned that our master head broke. Well, Fred found a guy who can fix it for us during the time we are in Connecticut for the holidays. A win for all.  Getting that taken care of left us time to explore Stuart. We walked to their downtown which was cute.  We noticed that all of the downtown sidewalks are painted. I’ve never seen that before. Although it gives us an indication of the money in this area. The boats in the marina also back this up.   Painted sidewalks In this marina, we have one of the smaller boats. We found out that this marina, Sunset Bay, has a lot of snowbirds. There are boats here from Vermont, Maryland, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, Michigan, Rhode Island, Virginia, Kentucky, New York, Louisiana, Connecticut (other than us), Colorado, and Prince Edward Island (Canada). And that’s just on our dock! They take their boats home for the summer months, and then bring their boats here for the winter season.  ...