Kasidah is on land

On the second day at the Ft Pierce marina it was raining all day and around 2pm I stuck my head out to see how hard it was really coming down and noticed a man admiring the boat and went on deck to say hi, he said hi and then told me he had the same boat as us. Jon came up and invited him on board to look at some of our work. John had been watching our blog for some time and wanted to see some of the stuff first hand. The next day he came back and picked us up to see his boat which was about a mile or so away. It was exciting to see another 36c and we were just amazed at all the things that were the same and all the things that were different. After that he brought us to the famous Archie’s bar (yes Richard we made it to Archie’s). This was a great place to just hang out.
The following day we left Ft Pierce and headed south instead of north, we thought about the distance it was to travel to the St Johns River and then up 50 miles to Green Cove Springs to haul Kasidah out, and the distances to head south to Stuart then west on the Okeechobee waterway to Indian town and quickly made up our minds. To get to the Indian Town Marina you have to go through one lock which made us feel a little better about leaving Kasidah during Hurricane season. The marina was a little more money to leave Kasidah but the people that run the marina are great and you can tell they really like their jobs.
Our only stop over on the way to Indian Town was at Sunset Marina in Stuart where we picked up a 10 dollar a day mooring ball and spent four days there so we could do some laundry, give Kasidah a wash down and quick wax and start doing a few things to get her ready for storage and the last thing was to go buy a car for our trip back to New York for the summer months.
We ended up finding three different cars that we liked and in the end picked a Jeep Grand Cherokee which we thought had the most room for all our crap. We bought it from the Saturn dealership in Stuart and our experience was one of the best we have ever had at a car dealer before. Rose the lady we bought the car from was very easy going and not pushy at all, Barbra the lady who does all the paper work and keeps the place running was the most efficient person behind a desk we have seen in a long long time. Two thumbs up for these lady’s…..
Sara was favoring one of her back legs for a couple days so we also made a trip to the Vet that we had seen before going to the Bahamas, and of course the day we went to see him she started putting weight on it. He gave us some antibiotics to put on it and said there was a small infection in one of her pads which we think may have been these little sand prickers they kept getting on their paws.
We headed out on Saturday for Indian Town and found the waterway was very much like the Erie Canal, one long ditch. Some of the bridges are 54 ft high and we are 51ft to top of mast so I am always a little neurotic when going under them. When we arrived at the lock there was a powerboat filled with young people having a good time….maybe to good of a time, they were all drinking and the guys were peeing of the back of the boat, when we finally locked through they asked Jon if he wanted a beer, at that point we notice they had a keg in the back of the boat and a full bar on the center console. All I could think was I really hope they are smart about the boating and drinking.
We arrived at Indian Town Marina in about 4 ½ hours and in plenty of time to take our sails down and pull off a few items from the boat. On the second day we cleaned all our sunbrella, cushions and went through the engine and water systems. The weather has started to warm up and the temp was up to 80 by noon, we had been told about not letting the dogs near the waters edge because of gators. Around an hour later I happen to be cleaning the side of the boat and looked off the side to see a 8 to 9 ft gator looking up at the boat (he was looking at Blue as if she was a light snack). I tried to tell him to go away but he really liked it there. The next day we heard some shots coming from the far end of the marina and was told later they had shot a huge water moccasin and the gator was right there waiting for them to give it to him.
Kasidah was hauled on Tuesday morning and John the guy who owns a sistership to Kasidah came in from Ft Pierce to do our updated survey for Boat US. The survey went well and we had time to put a Sunshade material on Kasidah to keep some of the Florida’s hot summer sun off her topside. We finished cleaning and packing on Wednesday and even managed to have time to go out to dinner with Jon’s old friend Dave and his girlfriend Cindy that night in Downtown Stuart. Stuart is a great little town that we love to walk around and sit outside of some of the cafes and have a drink or just do some people watching. If you are in that area it is worth the time to stop and walk around.
On Thursday we finished packing and said our goodbyes to Kasidah for the summer and we were on the road by noon. We made one stop in Vero Beach to visit an old friend and a person Jon had worked with in his early years






(This is Cliff and Bobby).


Now we are off to New York to make some money for our cruising kitty and to start planning our next adventures in paradise on our Trustworthy boat “Kasidah
















Guess who's boat this was at one time (Hint...look at the name) ?

We are back in the States

It seems like we do a lot of things on the spur of the moment lately, so this is nothing new. We woke up on Monday morning and got a report that Whale Cut was passable so we decided to get up and move right then. The cut was a little bumpy but nothing that we have not been through before however coming back in the north side looked a little scary with huge breakers that a surfer would be in their glory over. We had to time it and pick our cut and just go for it(no problem and a little exciting at that). We made our way up to a place called Spanish Cay which you have to take a slip and it’s not cheap, but we decided to go for it because everyone always talks about how nice it is. This island is very different from the other places we had pulled into. One thing is there is no one there. The only people that live there full time are the two that work the marina. We had enough time to walk the beaches and do a little exploring with the dogs. There was one bay we went to that there were hundreds of conchs all over the place and when we would pick them up they would come halfway out of their shell and it looked as if they were looking at us. We left there and our original plans were to anchor at Great Sale Cay and then go to the West End to wait for weather. A front was coming in on Thursday night so we did not know if we could cross anytime soon. On the way over to Great Sale another boat called to ask if anyone was doing the cross that night. Jon and I talked about it and then decided to go for it. As we passed Great Sale we looked for a beach and made our way over to it to let the dogs go potty and put the dink on the topside of Kasidah. It was amazing how many Portuguese man a war jelly fish we encountered this part of the trip. We left Great Sale at 6PM and had 10 hours of motoring in the calmest weather we had seen in the Abacos. We went off the bank at around 2AM and made Ft Pierce Fl. Around noon. The sea conditions were not bad at all, maybe 2 to 5 and a light roll. The autopilot worked great all the time and the stars and moon were absolutely beautiful. We only encountered three ships, one cruise ship and two very large cargo ships that made their way around our stern. One really cool thing I noticed at night was when I would pump water in the head fast there would be phosphorus things running in the bowl.
We are doing some cleaning on Kasidah right now and then will head up to Green Cove Springs where Kasidah will be hauled out and stored for a few months till our next adventure begins.

Still waiting.......

Just a few great people we hung with at the show.

This is (in center) Rich and Julie, they are future cruisers and had many questions for us. They came to the Abacos to do a little sailing for their vacation.

The show was fun with lots of partying, dancing and drinking going on. we saw lots of friends and even did a little dancing. The wind is down to about 20 to 25 but the air is still a little cold-in the low 60s. We still have not been able to do the Whale cut because of high seas in that area so we will miss the weather break on Wednesday to cross the Atlantic. We are now looking at crossing the Whale cut on Tuesday and then waiting for the next high to do the gulf stream. we need an East to South wind to have a nice pleasant crossing.

Great ending of a great day.........

People are coming in by the boat loads (click here to read about him)

Today is the Barefoot man show at Nippers beach bar. On our walk this morning we met up with the man himself, and of course I had to have a picture for the blog. George "the Barefoot Man"

is a very nice and friendly guy who you can tell has been coming here for awhile and seems to really enjoy the island and all the people here. He drove around on a golf cart(this is the number one means of travel, besides walking on the islands)and waved and said hi to everyone.

This is just one casualty from the wind we have seen so far.

Weather is calming down

We all faired well through the 48 hours of really windy weather. We did happen to see a cat come in that had some dinghy problems. This is not how you want to tow your dink......

We did a lot of exploring since the wind was so heavy and found some very cool beaches that were protected from the wind. We spent some time there with the dogs and doing a little cave exploring and climbing. the tempeture is only in the low 60s and is not supose to change till next week. The weather for crossing looks real promising for next week so maybe we will be back by then.

On our walk this morning we meet up with the Barefoot man, we did not know it was him till afterwards when we were talking to a guy who does card tricks at the show for people and who we had met last night at dinner.

Even though it is really blowing still, the boats are starting to come in for the really busy weekend, I guess it gets hard to find a spot by Friday morning. We are just sitting back watching the show out there.

Just waiting on the weather

We are just sitting back waiting for the weather to change.

It seems like that's all we do here. Last night was Nippers BBQ so we went to have some fun with many other cruisers we have meet on the way.

Here in the Abacos like other warm places, spring break has already started and there were lots of young people there. It was a riot watching them get trashed and dancing on everything. They were all having a great time, but not to sure how they felt in the morning. Even one 93 year old lady that lives on the island joined in the fun and even had a beer with us.

It is Monday and this is the one nice day for the week so we are going to the beach to hang out, the really heavy wind will be here by morning and last till Thursday.