Blogs from Fort Pierce, Florida, United States, North America - page 2

Our stay in Fort Pierce has come to an end. This is a fantastic place, and one we will keep in mind for the future. As already mentioned it is quiet, relaxed, less developed in a touristy way than its' surrounding cities and very friendly. The weather is perfect- just at the point in Florida where it starts to get warmer and the water gets more colourful. As a result there are less bugs and more variants of wildlife and sea life. We have made friends here, and we have always been made to feel welcome and part of the group. We could not have fallen upon a better place to do our repairs if we tried- we were very lucky to have accidentally stopped here. It is a place where many people just don't end ... read more

Marty's Grandmother told us that November is crappy in Florida. She was correct! For most of the month the winds blew, the sky was dark, the temperatures dropped and the rain came often. Cold front after cold front. Most of the projects I mentioned last time are still not done... for example was too windy and wet to take off the Wind Generator to fix it, it was too windy and wet to take the dinghy to the island where we could turn it upside down and scrape it clean. Instead we had to empty out the dinghy every few days, it became a swimming pool for the pelicans! December has seemed to change the weather like magic though- they are still very wrong in their forecasts but we have seen some sun and the winds ... read more

"Summerizing." For our northern boating friends, this might be a new word and new concept, as it was to us. As good as we may have become at winterizing our boat is about as bad as we were at summerizing Caribee. We arrived back in Fort Pierce about two weeks ago. We pulled into the marina at dusk. It was a very warm night, and it felt even warmer to us- we had just driven straight from Montreal with only a few hours rest along the way. A big difference in temperature for sure! It was just light enough to see how different the deck looked with the damaged teak gone, and to see the beginnings of our hard top bimini in place. The details would have to wait until the morning. The best change for ... read more

It has been a long time since our last entry. We are still in Fort Pierce. The mainsail proved to be a much bigger problem than we thought. We were absolutely not able to get it out of the mast ourselves, we had in fact broken the furler inside the mast so we were not able to roll it out. It was so badly jammed in there that even a rigger up in a bosun chair was not able to get it out either. The mast had to come down to take it out and to replace the broken furler parts. The day of our appointment to move the mast we motored over to the well where the crane was waiting. The tide was on the low side and the depths were scary, but we started ... read more

The trip from St-Marys to Fort Pierce was rather uneventful compared with some of our other night ventures, but it certainly did have some moments. We left St Marys close to 5 am Saturday morning in order to be washed out with the rather strong tide and to reach our destination of Fort Pierce in daylight the next day. It was a calm, cold dark morning. While Marty slowly weaved his way out along the snaking St Marys river, I looked for the unlit channel markers and the little yellow or white specs dotting the water so as to not get snagged in the crab traps below. After what seemed like a really long time in the bitter north wind we finally came out to big water and big channels and I came back to the ... read more