Week of March 25: A trip to the Lowcountry, Gardening and a Happy Hour Solution for the islands!

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 The azaleas are in full bloom in the lowcountry.

We made a quick trip home for an appointment for Bruce's back. It has started to act up a bit again and thought we would take care of that now, before we head to the islands.

The azaleas are prime this week and we are lucky to be able to see them. 

Florida is experiencing the rain and wind front that came through this week. On Wednesday, winds were clocked with gusts up to the mid 40s. The seas were "horrific" as Chris Parker says. The local news channel reported up to 17' foot seas offshore of us. The marina is packed! The ICW has white caps, in fact the marina had white caps and waves!

Dinner at Chuck's Seafood with a waterfront table. 

When cruising in the islands, we have to be conscience when it comes to disposing trash. We are having to be creative when it comes to preserving our happy hour. Bottles can be a problem that can build up and hard to dispose of unless you stay in a marina all the time, which we don't. We will dispose of all card board containers, repackaging into something more useful for storage on board and reusable. 

Our solution 

We purchased refillable wine bags in which the vodka will be stored. (from Amazon) We will mostly resort to boxed (bagged) wine getting rid of the cardboard before we leave. Handling these bags without a box can be tricky. I had some plastic jugs that protein powder comes in, so we cut the tops, made a hole for the wine/vodka bag spout, 2 holes for a rope handle. And voila! When the bag is empty, we can dispose of the wine bags and wash the refillable ones storing those. 

As for wine, we have been experimenting with several box ones. (I know, yuk!) We have found one that is tolerable. Black Box Cabernet. We have actually thrown others out. Can anyone suggest a good one? We will have some bottles but will have to limit those. We aren't big beer drinkers and will probably have some in cans (another yuk) that can be squished down for trash. We are big water drinkers and we are set as we will be able to make our own with the newly serviced water maker. 

I've missed gardening and every spring, I always want to try my hand at the vegetable garden. We had a very successful one our 1st year or so but ever since, they have been failures. I've been researching hydroponic gardening since I love to buy those lettuces here on the Saturday market and in the supermarket. 

I bring my air plants and orchid(s) with me on long cruises and usually 1 basil plant. I now have converted my 2 orchids to hydroponic and have 2 basils, a thai basil, parsley, 3 romaine and 1 curly kale growing hydroponic. If this works, I'm doing it bigger on the back porch at home. 

The lettuces will live on the flybridge where they get plenty of sunlight. The herbs will most likely stay in the galley. 

Sunset Saturday night

Jazz night at Rizzo's

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Week of March 18th, Maintenance and Cold Weather, Fort Pierce, FL

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The rain, wind and cold set in for south FL this week. Bummer! At least there isn't pollen or at least not too much of it. So far we are good there! As it is a quiet week, it is a good time to schedule some of the major maintenance projects and get some painting done!

Bella does not look happy on our face time call. She actually looks worried! Or mad?

Today is a 1 year anniversary of my last hair dye! One more cut to get the bits of bleached ends from my top layers. The rest is all grown out! The 1st 6 months were hard and I hated the transition but I am so glad it is almost done and am happy with it now. Now, about those wrinkles...

With the cold front and rain that came through this week, I had time for some painting.

This is Lucy. The snowy egret I had photographed last week here in the marina. I named her that because we are so very close to Port St Lucie.

Major maintenance project # 1. Have the water maker serviced! The membranes definitely needed to be changed out (9 years old) and our service guy and Bruce spent 2 mornings down in the ER doing the work. It is now all ready for us to be able to make our own good water once we go to the Bahamas. 

Major maintenance project #2. Polish fuel and clean the tanks. Now I personally classify both these projects in the same category as buying new tires. Hate to spend the money but needs to be done, so bring out the fuel service guys.   They were a bit dirty but nothing too crazy bad but did have quite a bit of water in the fuel, from condensation, we think. 

This photo is how they flush the tanks and circulate the fuel at high volume to stir up the tanks and clean the fuel.

We enjoyed another great meal at a Fort Pierce Thai restaurant and as we were walking home, we hear music. We had heard of Rizzo's which is a coffee shop/tobacco/wine bar by day but at night, the small back yard courtyard turns into a music event. This night was open mic and several bands were rotating through. The 2 we listened to were from Boone NC and were definitely not our type of music but it was fun listening to a bit of it and enjoying a glass of wine. It was so loud that we resorted to texting each other to talk. 

And if you dare to listen to the 5-6 seconds, these guys are fun. We plan on going back for jazz night this weekend. Drum circle is Thursday and Reggae is Friday.

Project #3: Diver down to scrape our bottom. Not a major project but one that needs to be done routinely. It's been at least 7 weeks since it was done at home, which is longer than we normally go. This guy has quite the set up.

Project #4. New docking lines! Ok, another one in the category of buying tires. They are bit larger diameter than our other old ones but most importantly, they are new and makes Bruce happy. 

Major maintenance project #5: Took down, purchased and installed new cable and doubled the block purchase ratio to unload the winch for the dinghy davit. Bruce has been worried that the set up was getting old and perhaps not as safe as it should be. It looked fine to me but again, it's new and shiny and makes him happy. (Him making sure we are safe makes me happy)

Other projects. Purchased and installed a new fan and a pillow top mattress cover in the v-berth (guest room). 

Attempting to replace the main cabin door lock and door handle. First attempt, not successful so ordered another one. Still working on that on that one today with and so far, so good. 

By the end of the week, the weather is much nicer as in less windy and much warmer. It was nice enough to get all the sunscreens washed before enjoying the music and food at the Sandy Toes Festival just a block away from us. I bought an orchid and a couple more air plants. 

Enjoying home made pizza on the fly bridge at sunset.

                      

Jazz night at Rizzo's. We plan to go again! 

Meet Pierce.

This pelican was sitting on the floating dock watching intently for lunch to swim by. 

Wednesday Market

And 2 Toogoodoo paintings as I am so far behind on that  project! 

February 2, Mid Morning

February 4, Early Departure

(the day we left the dock to come south)

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March 9 week: A visit to Ft Myers, a quiet week in Ft Pierce and St Paddy's Day Weekend

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Sea Dweller

Bryan and Mary, Ft Myers

We visited Bryan and Mary in Ft Myers over the weekend. 

And just like any boat, there are always boat projects.

Sea Dweller is an older boat, older than Summer Breeze and was in need of many projects which Bryan has been tackling on his times off. Here, the crew were helping him mark lengths of the anchor chain with colored zip ties. That lets us know how much chain we have dropped in the water when lowering the anchor. They had to pull out all 180' of chain and drape it across the walk.

Then, next was the dive operation where he was determined to find the pressure washer hose tip he had dropped. No, it was not recovered but he was able to do some needed measurements on the keel and show Bruce how to use the hookah dive apparatus which we will use in the Bahamas.

Sunrise on Monday March 11, Ft Pierce

What a feast! A sushi and sashimi boat for 2 at Krazy Fish in Ft Pierce. 
We almost ate it all but just couldn't quite accomplish it. 

Sunrise on Tuesday March 12

I reworked the lighthouse painting a bit, but only the sky and I lowered the background shrubs. 

Cape Florida Light

The birds are plentiful here! As are the manatees and dolphins.

This is a Snowy Egret which came close to extinction in the late 1800s because the long delicate plumes (developed during breeding season) which were used for ladies hats.

(I painted her yesterday but haven't photographed yet.)

 Wednesday Market Days, on the plaza at the marina gates. 

This one is not near as large as the Saturday market.  Fresh baked goods, farm fresh eggs, home made jams, jewelry, hats, clothing (island wear) and of course, CBD oil products. Oh and Kettle Korn! 

Sunrise, Thursday March 14

Sunset, Thursday March 14

The Tiki Bar here at the marina is scheduled to be demolished in the next month or so. Seems that it has been bought out and the new owners have other plans. Amazing to us since this place is always, always packed. 

We also enjoyed dining at 12A Bouy (where we went for a late lunch on Thursday and still had almost an hour wait!) and also The Rooster in The Garden when Becky and Charles came to visit last night. 

St Patricks Day Eve on Saturday

It is a lazy Saturday for us. We planned on staying in today and actually doing the St Paddy thing on Sunday. It's a misty rainy kind of day and as we are relaxing on the hammock and reading, we hear music. So I googled the place we think it is coming from and they are having a St Patricks Day Block party, so off we go, with our rain jackets. The band was excellent as were the impromptu dancers.  We stayed just for a bit as the rain started up and had dinner plans at home all set. We hope to do St Paddy's day on Sunday in town, which is literally just steps from where we are!

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March 4 Week: More family time, haircuts and Trawlerfest 2019

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Trawlerfest 2019 at Hutchinson Islsnd

It was a no brainer to attend this year since we were already scheduled to be in Ft Pierce during this time. There were several very nice boats to visit (for sale). Made us go “ah” and “ooh” when comparing to our 35 year old boat, BUT... we felt that Summer Breeze was much more roomier on the inside that the similar or even larger ones. 

https://www.passagemaker.com/trawlerfest/trawlerfest-stuart-2019

We had the pleasure of meeting Bruce and Dorsey Beard (M/V Esmeralde) whom we are FB friends with. Their absolutely beautiful American Tug is ....beautiful. 

https://brucebeard.com Aboard Esmeralde. Look! A full size refrigerator!

Bruce attended a 2 day diesel school which he learned quite a bit from the industry masters, Nigel Calder and Steve Zimmerman. 

And I’m so proud of my hubby! He was awarded with a zinc as a gift for being the Valedictorian!🤪

As well as his certificate and a bottle of wine that all the attendees received 

We also had the pleasure of meeting Chris Parker. Yes, THE Chris Parker of Marine Weather Center. Bruce has had several phone conversations with him and we subscribe to his weather service. 

 Other exciting events during the week was having dinner with Becky and Charles, Linda and Howard to celebrate Judy's birthday. They took us to the most fabulous Thai restaurant in Stuart. We will definitely go again. 

Bruce had the whole fish.... 

 I had the Shrimp Green Curry. Delicious!

 Time for haircuts! I had the pleasure of getting a great cut, cutting almost the last of the blondish tips off. Maybe 1 more cut will do it! Can't wait. It has been almost a year since I stopped coloring my hair. Bruce got a cut as well.

And what is this? Anyone know? No one around seems to know. It is a fish, shaped kind of like a sting ray but without a tail or barb.It has a turtle like head but shaped like a hammer head shark and it comes up to breathe air at every stroke of the ray like wings. Up close it looks like batman, so I've been calling it a bat fish but I have no idea! Anyone?

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