Oh, Lord, stuck in Lodi again….John Fogarty

Sojourn in Stuart.

From the Captain.

Dec 5, 2013. Vero Beach to Stuart, FL 35 nm

Green sea water enters at the St. Lucie inlet

When we pass inlets on the rising tide, the influx of sea water is green in color: brighter, it seems, the further south we get. The green color fades as it mixes with river water, but it's a preview of the ocean voyage to come. Our plan is to travel to Stuart, a few miles off the ICW. It's up the St. Lucie River toward Lake Okeechobee. At the crossroads of the Indian River, the St. Lucie River, and the inlet to the Atlantic, we turn back north. We're heading toward the Sunset Bay Marina.

Our friends, Jim and Irene Falby moor their sailboat here. Jim's sister, Judy, lives in Charlotte and is an old friend of ours. Jim and Irene have made the sail to the Bahamas several times, and Judy introduced us over the summer. They provided a wealth of information and advice.

On our first meeting, we sailed on Luna and anchored in Kingsland Bay for dinner. A storm came up and the wind suddenly backed around to the north, threatening to push Luna against the rocky lee shore. There was a tense twenty minutes with the motor running, ready to move should the anchor drag and we get too close to the shore. The anchor held. The storm passed, and we decided to return to Long Point to have our dinner. We arrived at dusk. It was a great dinner, but I think, the mosquitos ate more than we did.

Having survived our first meeting, Jim and Irene gave us some charts and told us about the Marina in Stuart where they stay before heading out on a cruise. It happened that they were there when we arrived. They returned the dinner invitation, and we brought our smoked salmon appetizer and a bottle of wine over to their O'day 37, Escapaid.  It was great to renew our acquaintance and have dinner minus the storm and the bugs.

There are a lot of support services for mariners in Stuart, and we found a canvas worker within walking distance of the marina. We brought our dodger and bimini cover to her for repair of some loose seams.

December 6, 2013 Stuart, FL to Sanibel Island, FL. 150 statute miles.
December 6-8 Sanibel Island, Florida

The next morning, we called Enterprise auto rental, and they picked us up to sign up for our rental car. The economy model Chevy was available, but they also offered us, for only $15 extra for the week, a Mustang convertible. I was ready to stay with the Chevy. As the commander pointed out: it's Florida. How can we turn down that offer.

We're heading for Sanibel Island where our son, Tris, and his wife, Preetha, and two daughters, Zara and Violet, are vacationing with Preetha's sister and brother-in-law and their two children. In our Mustang, with the top down, we bombed across the state along the southern edge of Lake Okeechobee. We made in three hours what it would have taken three or four days to accomplish in Luna. But less fun in the car I think. The center of the state here is sugar cane country, and not much else is happening. There is a levee along the road that contains the lake; you can't even see the lake from the road. There is a pull off, and we stop, just to check out the lake. We walk up a steep bank, but all we can see is a moat and another levee inside the first one.

Sanibel Island is a nice spot. Not crowded until January, we're told. The family is staying in a lovely

Flamingo nativity scene, Sanibel Island

resort on the beach, and there is a suite available for us. Within the 10-mile long island are 22 miles of bike paths. Tris and Preetha rented bicycles for us, and we traveled as a group--adults, kids, bicycles, bike trailers, third-wheel trail-a-bikes. We rode downtown for dinner and the annual luminary festival. Candles in white paper bags lined the main streets. Christmas lights decorated the trees and shops.There was music, wine-tasting. As in St. Augustine, it was a town party, and everyone, it seems, was out. We rode back to the hotel using our smart phones as headlights.

Bellam-Bernstein-Hanley-Kuruduyara-Hill Family Photo

The next day, we rode up to the the Sanibel Island lighthouse and back. And that night we took asunset cruise in the bay between Sanibel and the mainland. Motoring slowly past the large houses along the narrow channel before entering the bay, we were able to show our family first-hand how we've been traveling for the past two months. We even saw dolphins along the way.

Grandma time writing postcards

We collected shells on the beach, we swam with the kids in the pool, and for the first time on this trip, we swam in the ocean.

  December 8. Sanibel Island to Naples, FL.   33  statute miles

Since Naples is only an hour away, we decided to visit our Long Point neighbors and friends, Don and Joan Zeiter, in their winter home in Naples. They are both active in the choir of their local church and were singing in the morning and afternoon services. We had lunch with them. Joan is singing a solo performance of "O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion" from Handel's Messiah at the afternoon service. Which is how we found ourselves at St. Mary's Episcopal Church for the Advent service. We enjoyed the singing. We were reminded of the events of the birth of Jesus.

Being in church usually brings to my mind the quirky travel writer, Redmond O'Hanlon. He writes about his travels to impossible places, in this case up the Congo River or somewhere to look for traces of a rare dinosaur. He finds a native village. He blends with the culture. He sleeps in the long house. He hears about eating long pig (humans) some time in the tribe's not so distant past. At one point, the chief of the village speaks to him through his translator. "Explain this to me," he asks.  "How is it that you Europeans think that there was this man who was conceived without a father, who was killed, buried, then came back to life. Who then went up to heaven and watches over everything you do. And if you believe in him, he will give you everlasting life? And you call us superstitious."

We are all entitled to the beliefs that guide our lives. I am aware of the controversy down through the ages around whether the Bible speaks literally or symbolically. But I am also aware that the literal interpretation of the Bible is becoming the norm in a lot of Christian communities. And that over the years, more atrocities have been committed in God's name than God would seem to permit, given the power to prevent them. Reading Michener earlier in the journey, I learned how the Bible was invoked by southern preachers as the moral basis of slavery.

I am also coming from two days with a five-year-old during a Christmas celebration in Sanibel. We discussed the difficulties Santa Claus would encounter trying to deliver his presents to a sailboat. We conclude he could slide down the mast with his bag and climb back up. The patron saint of children imposes a strict moral code on his charges. He is abetted by the parents as the arbiters of what is naughty and what is nice. But this is probably the last year that Santa Claus can be invoked for Zara as the reason to eat her peas.

On the other hand, there are sunsets which touch us deeply. Art and music delight our senses. Good friends and committed relationships stir our souls. We are blessed, and God is all around. And perhaps, He is nowhere more present than here out in nature as we are.

December 9. Naples, Florida, to Stuart, FL 196 miles.

We're back on Luna, having visited our children and grandchildren, our neighbors and good friends, and even my mom in Boynton Beach. We spent most of the day with her, and left after an early dinner at Bonefish.

There is a punch list of tasks to do while in Stuart. We need to do some cleaning, and reprovision at Costco (about an hour away by car). I have decided to dismantle the water tank I constructed beneath the dinette. We can use the storage space, and the tank pretty much failed to hold water reliably. I need to put a discharge valve into our holding tank. There is a little refastening to do.

Traveling down through all the cold weather, we have kept the cabin hatches closed at night. The water vapor in our breath condenses on the surfaces. Everything is damp in the morning. The dampness promotes mold growth, and all the closed lockers have evidence of mold. The commander buys a spray bottle of clorox and resolves that problem.

We are out on a mooring at the marina, but the staff is incredibly helpful. They graciously allow us to tie up at the gas dock to plug into the shore power there. I can use my power saw to cut hoses and dismantle the water tank. We spend two separate days on the dock using the power. At one point, the dock master at the marina drove me a few miles to West Marine so I could pick up a part.

The holding tank revision is for traveling to the Bahamas, and I have been putting this off until I am confident we are going. Here in the U.S., government regulations prohibit discharging holding tanks in all inland waterways. We have been having the tank pumped every week or two at marinas where we stay overnight or stop for diesel fuel. In the Bahamas, however, there are very few facilities for emptying holding tanks. I have installed a valve and an electric macerator pump (think garbage disposal) that will empty the tank through an existing fitting in the bottom of the boat. Responsible cruisers in the Bahamas wait for the falling tide, sail off shore and pump their tanks when necessary.

Luna displays her Xmas present

It hasn't been all work here. There is a historic downtown section accessible by a boardwalk that goes along the river, under the railroad tracks that go through the center of town, and under the main highway. We did some Christmas shopping at a lovely craft place, the Rare Earth Gallery. We even found a Christmas present for Luna-a carved laminated wood dolphin created by an artist from Grand Isle, Vermont.  We had a plate of oysters and happy hour bloody marys at Mulligans. There is a farmers' market down by the city hall on Sundays. We bought some fresh vegetables (strawberry season has started in Florida) and a few conch fritters from Bahama Patty. This seems like a nice place to be, removed from the bustle and ostentation of the Florida further south. Indeed, there are people who spend the entire winter here on their boats.

At the Stuart Farmer's Market

Craig and Donna, from Mighty Fine are here as well. Craig is the maven of happy hour venues and always seems to know where the best places are. We joined them at the Pelican for $6.00 pitchers of beer. Here, the most popular beer seems to be Yuengling, which I've always associated with the mid-Atlantic and northeast. It turns out they also have a brewery in Tampa.

Craig and Donna have been traveling with a couple from Toronto on Mar-a-Lago, their 42-foot Catalina. We met Brian and Jane in Annapolis and met them again at the Pelican. They are intending to travel to the Bahamas in the same manner as we do, and we are all really pleased to go in tandem for this part of the trip. We resolve to meet at South Beach for Christmas.

We've also had fun exploring the area. The canvas lady who did a wonderful job restitching and patching our dodger and bimini told us of a small park with a dock a block from her shop. We took the dinghy from our mooring, up a small creek, under a very low bridge, to the dock. From there it was a short walk to the post office and to Ace Hardware. We hardly ever pass up a chance to visit the latter.

There is a community among the cruisers, and someone has arranged a potluck and Christmas carol sing-along in the lounge. We missed this one, thanks to the oysters at Mulligans. But I was reminded of a similar sing-along in East Charlotte, out front of Spear's Store. We gathered with a couple dozen neighbors to sing carols. Everyone knew the first couple lines of a lot of the songs, but none could get all the way through. By the time someone from the fire department showed up with printed lyrics, we had run through the first verses of all the familiar tunes, and the crowd had mostly dispersed.

Christmas Lighting, Daytona

It's taken us a while to warm up the the idea of Christmas in the South. The commander wonders how Jesus, who was born in the desert, wound up with the northern European interpretation of his birthday inolving pine trees and snow, reindeer, and furry red hats. However, as the time approaches, we're aware of more and more lights, some impossibly over the top, on both houses and boats. We buy a few stands of LED lights to hoist up the mast and power with the small inverter we have. We send out a few small gifts.

In the holiday spirit, downtown Stuart

Having finished our tasks, we are thinking of leaving tomorrow. We've been in Stuart for over a week, and we're both feeling the urge to move. We're about three days from Miami, but will probably spend a couple days in Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale along the way.

The dinks are all in a row as Sunset Bay Marina lives up to its name