Thursday, May 6, 2010 - Stuart, FL to West End, Grand Bahama

The adventure aboard Adventure begins!!


After spending a month in Iowa finalizing the sale of our townhome, moving Gale’s parents to Apple Valley (an assisted living facility in Clear Lake), seeing our physicians, eye doctors, dentists, and chiropractors, visiting our children, grandchildren and some of our other relatives, and taking care of some legal business, we loaded up the rental car on Tuesday, April 27th, and headed for Stuart, Florida, to meet our friends, Mark and Diane Holt, aboard their motor yacht, Adventure.

We took four days to make the trip with stops in Iowa City to see our son, Kelle, for a few moments between classes; an overnight stop in Des Moines with Jess, Joe, JT and Jake Spalding (our daughter and her family); an overnight in Aurora, Illinois to spend time with Dan, Julie, Kevin and Justin Thul (our son and his family); an overnight in Memphis, Tennessee, and a visit to Graceland; and the last night on the road in Georgia.


We arrived in Stuart around 4 pm Saturday afternoon, unloaded the car and relaxed aboard Adventure.

The four of us decided to take Sunday off and we headed out in the dinghy to have lunch at Shrimpers and then a tour around the St. Lucie River. We found a sandbar where many boats were anchored or pulled up on the beach enjoying the sun and the sand. It was a picture perfect Sunday afternoon on a Florida beach.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were spent provisioning for our two-month adventure. Diane and Maureen tackled WalMart on Monday to get the groceries and spent nearly $1,000 on food items. Mark and Gale handled the matters of picking up beer and liquor, stopping at West Marine for some boat items, and a couple of other stops for miscellaneous provisions.

On Tuesday, Gale and Maureen drove to Indiantown Marina to get a few things from Blue Heron that would be needed for the trip. Blue Heron looked a little sad and kind of dirty but we waved goodbye and promised to return as soon as we could. Mark had to travel to Miami for a meeting on Tuesday morning. On his return trip, he picked up Ron Daniels at the airport. Ron will be driving the Holts’ vehicle back to Iowa when we leave the marina on Thursday. Wednesday morning found the guys out fishing while the girls did some last minute errands. Our hired captain, Jim Mobley, from Gulfport, Florida, arrived about 5 pm on Wednesday evening.



After a very busy three days, we were ready to depart!! Up at 4:30 am Thursday morning, we left the dock at 6 am en route to The Bahamas. It was a lovely morning, the seas were calm and the sky was clear. The temperature was already 75°F and it was humid.





The 80-mile passage could not have been any more enjoyable or relaxing. To top off the day, we made it to West End, Grand Bahama, at 4 pm and found a nice marina in a beautiful setting. The water color and clarity was amazing!! Clearing customs was no big deal – we had all the paperwork done and the cruising pass in hand by 5 pm. We took a walk over to the fish cleaning station and talked to a visiting sailor as he cleaned his tuna and dolphin. Soon, a local guy and his cooler filled with illegal lobster approached us wanting to sell his catch. The lobster season closed on March 1st and the fines are hefty for catching, selling or possessing the critters. The man left his cooler and walked off asking us to keep an eye on it. It wasn’t long before the Fisheries official came over to see what was up. We don’t know if he ever got his man, but we were glad that we hadn’t bought any of the lobster!!






On our walk around the marina, we noticed a small boat full of conch and a couple of guys going from boat to boat selling their harvest. Platinum and his buddy, Joey, were quite friendly and very accommodating. We asked Platinum if he would clean out the meat and just sell us the shells which he was happy to do. After we soak them in bleach, we’ll use them to help toast the sunsets. We continued our walk to the restaurant and ordered our meals. The service was a bit on the slow side and Maureen had to go back to the boat before the food arrived. She had been fighting a cold and runny nose all day and the combination of cold medicine and a couple of glasses of wine had done her in!!