Ft. Pierce

We spent a lovely week exploring Ft. Pierce and meeting with lots of other Loopers.  We hadn’t realized how secluded we were in the Bahamas for the last 6 weeks.  The incredible noise all around us took us by surprise.  Cars, trains, music, sirens!  We almost turned around and went back.

We arrived at 11 in the morning and stopped at the fuel dock for fuel and a pump out.  This was the first fuel we purchased since we left Florida.  Diesel (as well as everything else) is expensive in the Bahamas.  There was a very familiar boat docked next to the fuel dock – Drift Away.  We’ve played cat and mouse with them since the Erie Canal. They invited us over for docktails along with Unruly, then we all went out for dinner.  It was a VERY long day, but as Drift Away was leaving in the morning we  stayed awake and had a great time.

Angie and Gary on Unruly were with us nearly the whole time and we enjoyed their company as we toured the area. There is a wonderful museum nearby – The Navy UDT –Seal Museum.   Ft. Pierce was one of the original training stations for frogmen in World War II. It is an incredible display of original equipment, videos, and lots of stories.

Outside was a continuation of history:

Some of the different types beach obstacles and “hedgehogs” found on the beaches during WWII. The Seals would come in first and blow up as many of these as possible before the troops landed.

These were “Seal Delivery Vehicles”. The Seals would lie inside like a coffin while this sped them underwater to their destination. Not my preferred form of transportation.

They had a wonderful obstacle course set up outside for the kids (of all ages) to “play” on.  Wouldn’t you love this in your back yard?

The next day I checked out all the docks (A-L) for other Loopers.  I found many Looper burgees (flags) but many seemed to be away for an extended period of time, but I did meet new Loopers that were just beginning and reconnected with Happy Wanderer that we haven’t seen since the beginning of the Erie Canal.  They had fond memories of singing The Erie Canal song with Sal, the Mule.  The marina is quite large and has two restaurants on site. They sell fish food at the marina gift store and people are always at the dock feeding the large schools of fish that know where to find the food!  I learned to identify Giant Mullets (a “trash” fish used for bait), sheepshead, and parrot fish (both good eating fish).

That night we had docktails on Unruly with Meg and George from Viridian and Mike from Dash Away after a quick visit with the crew of Serenity.  We hadn’t seen the last three boats for several months.  It was a nice reunion.

Saturday was farmer’s market day – supposedly the best in Florida, and I believe it!  A huge market with stall after stall of produce, bakeries, meat, drinks, etc.  There is a whole separate area dedicated to local crafts and merchandise.  I had a lovely croissant filled with cheese, bacon, and jalapenos for breakfast! We rented a car (Enterprise often has a great deal of $12 a day over the weekend), and drove to Vero Beach with Angie and Gary. We visited the Citrus Museum (did you know that Citrus is not native to Florida?  The sailors on Christopher Columbus’ second voyage were required to bring 100 seeds each!), Mel Fisher’s Treasure Museum, indulged in Country Citrus slushy's (fresh orange juice slushy's layered with soft serve ice cream) – highly recommended by several people and more than lived up to their reputation, and lunch at Squid Lips.

Here’s my pictorial of our day:

Vero Beach is a tourist haven beach town. There was a street fair/farmers market (not nearly as awesome as Ft Pierce, but a fun, small town fair).

We have never seen a mobile ATM before!  This should catch on.

Some of the treasure from Mel Fisher’s museum. Bob has been a fan of Mel Fisher since he was a child.  Mel started the first ever scuba shop in California before he and his wife (and 4 children) sold everything to begin treasure hunting in the Atlantic Ocean.  It was only 30 days later they found their first treasure right off the coast of Vero Beach.  They went on to make the largest find to date when they discovered the shipwreck of the Atocha – worth over 450 million dollars.

Mel was a man of many talents, a musician with his own band, and inventor.  He invented this underwater casing for a camera.  He also had a TV show and made Scuba training films for the US Navy. His wife was also a diver and promoted diving for ladies.  She once broke the world record for women staying underwater to encourage more women to take up diving, staying underwater for 50 hours!

We took a break for lunch at this cute, local chain restaurant – Squid Lips.  It is popular with good food, reasonably priced. We watched dolphins that looked like they were chasing a school of fish.  Too far to get good pictures.

A front came in while we were there and we were subject to rain squalls the rest of the afternoon. We still enjoyed our orange slushies', even though we ate them in the car!

Our last day at Ft. Pierce, we re-provisioned and cooked for a potluck that evening.  It was a fun evening with many cruisers from the marina, Loopers and more! This picture was taken after many had left!  When will I learn?????

 

Docked at Ft. Pierce City Marina – April 3rd – April 10th with Drift Away, Dash Away, Unruly, Serenity, and Happy Wanderer.

Back to the States

It was a bit on the choppy side (2-3 ft seas) for the first several hours but down to a gentle chop – maybe 1-2 ft seas.  The best part of the day was the 3 dolphins that swam with us for a while.  We knew there were dolphins in the Bahamas but we had not seen any.  The water is so clear I could see them them very clearly.  Of course as soon as I stopped filming and turned to tell Bob how beautiful they were, they were gone. They seem to love attention!

After we anchored in the bay at Great Sale the water lapped against the side of the boat and we were glad we don’t sleep in the V-berth.  In the morning the water was nearly as calm as it could be.  We hope it stays that way the rest of the day and tonight as we’ll be sleeping in the open.
We creep out of the anchorage at 8:10 so as not to “wake” the 11 sailboats and 1 power “go fast” boat we leave behind.  As we travel, it is surprising how many boats there are along the way. Sailboats, go fast boats, and an occasional trawler.  Then we are alone – not a boat to be seen.  There is one island – Sandy Cay – visible in the distance as we anchor for the night.

This is a panorama of our anchorage

We are in 9 feet of water on Little Bahama Bank.  The water is is a little bumpier than the night before at Great Sale Cay, but not much.  It usually quiets down at night so we look forward to a quiet night.

7 PM – the winds pick up and it gets choppy

10 PM – the boat is bouncing around and literally plunging down after a big swell hits us.  Everything is tied down or in a safe place so we decide to try to sleep.

12 midnight – no sleep – we keep thinking it will quiet down as there is a quiet spell before another big swell hits, again and again.

2:00 AM – Bob suggests we go ahead and leave as we aren’t sleeping anyway.

2:30 AM – Anchor is up and we are underway – much smoother going WITH the swells rather than having them HIT us!

3:00 AM – I go below and get an hour and a half of sleep

4:30 AM – I relieve Bob and he actually gets an hour and half of sleep as well!  He usually doesn’t sleep when we are underway.

11:00 AM – We dock at Ft. Pierce City Marina, tired but pleased.

Our crossing was not what we pictured, but all in all not bad considering we hadn’t intended a night crossing.  There were several large ships out there (cargo and cruise) but they were well lit, it was clear night, and our radar picked them up as well, so we had no problem staying out of their way.  It was a 3/4 moon and the heavens were bright with stars.  When the sun came up, the pleasure/fishing/go fast boats appeared in the distance.  They disappeared again into the horizon before we even got close.  The sunsets and sunrises were spectacular and I even saw the green flash from Memory Rock – of course I didn’t have the camera out that night!

Here are a few snaps of our crossing:

Great Sale Anchorage

Sunset at Great Sale

The sun was at the horizon but no green flash this time.

Shortly after sunrise

Go fast boats on the horizon – zoomed in

Colorful sailboat on the horizon – zoomed in

Anchored Great Sale Cay – April 1st

Anchored Memory Rock – April 2nd (half of the night)

Docked Ft. Pierce City Marina – April 3rd – April 10th with Drift Away, Dash Away, Unruly, Serenity.

Green Turtle Cay– repeat

More strong winds are predicted so back to Green Turtle Cay’s  protected Black Sound. 
We spent two weeks playing pickleball, biking, baking, and snorkeling when the weather allowed.
For those of you who have not heard or are familiar with pickleball – it is a combination of ping pong and tennis – played with a whiffle ball.
Here’s a video of people playing.  It is played on a modified tennis court, with a lower net.  It is similar to ping pong in scoring but you only play to 11 points.

We had the most beautiful fishing boat docked next to us.  La Belle had her own captain and deck hand along with her owners and their friends, all from Texas.  Turns out the owner’s wife graduated from my alma mater – Federal Way High.  Granted, she graduated 20 years later than I did, but we still had some of the same teachers!  Their deckhand gave me a good education on fishing.  The back of the boat bristled with fishing rods.

He cleaned and polished the boat every day and then prepared all the bait for the next fishing trip.  These are mullet that he set up to look like a school of fish to attract the larger fish. They were all quite disappointed when they only caught one fish!  It was a delicious Mahi Mahi that they shared with us.  I kept them supplied with baked goodies!

We biked around the island and found this cute sign directing us to the beach “Beach Dat Way”

Lots of lovely flowers here
Bougainvillea

Cactus “bush”

Beautiful hydrangea

We passed this poor dock everyday.  So sad.

Our biggest disappointment in the Bahamas was the wind.  It was so strong that we were not able to get out to the outer reef to snorkel.  We finally arranged a snorkeling trip with a dive boat. Even they had to change plans due to rough seas.  Bob injured his knee playing pickleball, so it was just Judy and I going out.  We had a wonderful time on the reef, then feeding the stingrays, and finally feeding the sea turtles.

Chillaxin’

The dive boat

Judy ready to enter the water

The reef was beautiful – lots of color

shapes,

and fish

Stingray

Turtle

and a shark!

It was an awesome way to end our time in the Bahamas.  We left the next day.

Docked at Leeward Yacht Club, Green Turtle Cay – March 19-April 1st with Blue Yonder III

Great Guana Cay, Manjack Cay, and No Name Cay

We left Hope Town and had a lovely smooth crossing of The Whale passage to arrive at Great Guana Cay.  It has a lovely harbor with lots of room to anchor.

The water is so clear you can see the bottom clearly. 

 

Glenn and Lois on Ensenel arrived the day before and we dinghied in to shore to visit with them awhile before we explored the town on foot.  It is a very small town, consisting of a few restaurants, 2 gift shops, and two dive shops.  These were outside one of the dive shops – now I have a new adventure to think about in the future.  Doesn’t this conjure up visions of 007 movies?

This bench was outside the dive shop – now don’t you want to go diving?

Yellow stop signs covered in stickers! –

BTW – we haven’t seen a stop light since we’ve been in the Bahamas – chickens yes, stop lights, no.

This form of tree decoration (flotsam) is quite popular over here.

That evening we had docktails on Gypsea’s Palace – a beautiful catamaran we hadn’t seen since last April,

then game night on our boat with Glenn and Lois, and Mike and Judy.  We witnessed one of the prettiest sunsets together.

The next day begins 2 days of a local legend – Barefoot Man – performing at another local favorite – Nippers.  It is a bar on the ocean side of the island. 

There is a small inside bar/restaurant and many levels of decks outside along with a lovely swimming pool and gift shop.  This is reported to be Barefoot Man’s next to last year performing and it is a well attended concert.

Barefoot Man’s band

The stores in the Bahamas have trouble with customers tracking in sand – one even posted a sign – “No sandy shoes”.  Nippers solved the problem by using sand for the floor in their gift shop.

We quickly remembered why we don’t attend many concerts as the music is so loud it’s hard to hear yourself think let alone talk with your friends.  We enjoyed “cracked conch” (deep friend battered conch), taking in several songs, “visiting” with some other Loopers we hadn’t seen for months, before throwing in the towel and heading back to the boat. 

We weren’t the only ones who preferred the quiet of the water.  This couple enjoyed a quiet dance on their boat.

An exquisite sunset to finish the day.

The next day we bid a temporary farewell to our friends and headed back to Manjack Cay to do some snorkeling.  We went to the north side of the island this time in hopes of seeing the stingrays.  There is only one other boat in the bay where we anchor.  We had seen the colorful dinghy at Hope Town but not the boat.  They must have had kids visiting and sleeping in the tent on top of the boat!  Notice the Canadian flag on the back of the boat.  It seems people in the Bahamas are either Canadian or from New England!

We swam to shore and took a short hike.  The next day we planned to dinghy around the point to the next bay where the stingrays were usually seen but our smooth quiet water the day we arrived turned too choppy in the unexpected winds to try to get there.  We spent a bumpy day on the boat.  That night it was so calm you couldn’t see a ripple!  Go figure!

The next day we stopped at No Name Cay on our way back to Green Turtle Cay.  This beach is known for their swimming pigs.  They are “wild” pigs but love the people who come feed them. 

I took the warnings seriously and threw the pancakes (supposedly their favorite food – they leave the carrots and onions to rot in the sand) to them – not wanting their teeth too close to my fingers!

The babies were so cute, I tried to give them their fair share because the adults would charge in to take the food whenever possible and the poor babies would duck out of the way quickly. 

After our fun feeding them, went on back to Green Turtle as more bad winds were expected. 

Anchored at Great Guana Cay with Blue Younder III and Ensenel – 3/15-3/16/18

Anchored at north bay of Manjack Cay – 3/17-3/18/18

Docked at Leeward Yacht Club and Marina 3/19-3/31/18