Thurs, March 11, 2010 - Stuart, FL

The morning greeted us with 20 knot winds out of the southeast and cloudy skies. Increasing winds and possible thunderstorms were forecast for the day so we wanted to take advantage of the favorable winds while we had them and get ourselves to Stuart before any really bad weather. By 8:15 am we had the anchor up and were sailing out of Hobe Sound. Traveling under the bridges wasn’t quite as slow today since most of them opened on request instead of on a fixed time schedule. In addition, it seemed that boaters had decided to stay home because of the windy weather and we had no “traffic” problems in the channel.

We arrived at the mouth of the St. Lucie River in the late morning with winds gusting up to 30 knots. The inlet was rough and the channel markings were somewhat confusing due to the dredging that was being done, but we soon reoriented ourselves and made our way safely through the narrow channel. As we passed under Roosevelt Bridge, the last bridge of the day, we called the Sunset Bay Marina to find out what our mooring ball assignment would be. Gale had spoken to someone in the office both yesterday and this morning before we hauled anchor. He was told that there would be no problem getting a mooring ball – that there were “several” spots available – just call when we were at their harbor. As it turned out, they had nothing available anymore! Evidently, several boats had come in before us in anticipation of stormy weather and they assigned the balls on a first-come, first-served basis. Gale was quite upset! We needed fuel anyway, so we pulled up to the Sunset Bay Marina’s dock to get diesel and fill up the fresh water tanks. In speaking to the young man who was assisting us, he mentioned that he could see two mooring balls that were vacant. Now Gale was really mad! He went directly to the office to find out what was going on. The dockmaster was apologetic and said that the two balls that were vacant were rented to others who had just been out having “work” done and would be returning soon; he could, however, place us in a lay along slip against the dock and would let us have that space at the same price as a mooring ball. Gale was satisfied with this and happy not to have to go find a safe anchorage with a possible storm approaching.

We settled in, checked out the facilities and walked about five blocks towards town where we located the Publix grocery store in a small shopping center. On our walk back, we lingered in a city park where we noted for future reference that there was a canal with a public wall to tie up small boats for a few hours of shopping.

Back at Blue Heron we rested for a time and then headed to the shower facilities. On our way there, we ran into Chip Lucas whom we had first encountered at Grand Harbor Marina at the beginning of the Tenn-Tom Waterway. Chip was the guy who had taken us out in his client’s $3 million Carver Marquis for an afternoon spin. Following our showers, we visited with a few cruisers on the porch of the marina office as we waited for the rain showers to quit. From there, it was a few steps over to the marina’s restaurant, Sailor’s Return, where we shared the lamb shank and vegetable entrée.