Flywheelin'

Good friend Jim Ryan made it here to Jensen Beach just in time for the guys to go to the Flywheelers swap meet in Fort Meade. This was a huge show with row after row of vendors and all sorts of tractors, engines, and vehicles on display. There were tractor pulls, a 'build a Model T in 5 minutes show, and even a 1920s village to explore. Since this venue covers 374 acres, there were all sorts of golf carts for rent, along with privately owned ATVs and side-by-sides to cover the property. It was like the Gallupville Gas-Up and Daytona Turkey Run all rolled into one.

Tractor pulls for both large and small (but modified) tractors...

This was the queen of the show and they started it twice a day. The engine weighs 100,000 lbs!

The piston rings, valves, and spark plugs were on display. The pistons were 20" in diameter.

The carburetors...

Notice the propellers on this marine engine...

Two rare Worthington tractors...

These are two mega trikes assembled out of various farm and industrial equipment.

A collection of vintage Club Cadets.

This Gibson looks similar to Dave's cute little Panzer.

The two tractors below were made for citrus farms so that nothing gets caught in the engines.

Old railroad tugs that were used in train switching yards...

Look at all these Cushmans! Dave has one up north too (he said that about a lot of things he saw. In fact our yard is a miniature version of this show 😉).

3 wheeled Honda ATCs galore, a blast from our past.

"Case Country" says it all for this line up.

Building a Model T in 5 minutes challenge. They did it and they drove it away!

This was a running model of an 18 cylinder, double row radial engine. The prop was used to start it. 

Next time I will join Dave to see this all for myself. There just happens to be another tractor show at the end of February that falls on our anniversary. It is touted as the biggest show of the year!

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Let Sleeping Iguanas Lie

I know it is all relative since last night Ticonderoga was -8 degrees, but it was also quite cold here on the Treasure Coast at 47 degrees. These chilly temps are when the iguanas come out and their systems can't handle the cold, so they become temporarily paralyzed and fall from the trees. Once the temps warmed up this morning, we went kayaking along the St. Lucie River and came across two large blue-green iguanas trying to soak up the heat of the sun in the mangroves. My photo below only shows one, and it was sleeping with its feet hanging over the branch and its tail hanging almost to the water, looking like a mangrove root (look for the stripes).  We didn't disturb them and moseyed on our way. 

More cold weather is expected early next week so they need that sunshine...just like us! 

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Port Side

Recently we did a kayak exploration of the Fort Pierce port and points north. This was another new adventure for us, with quite the sights. The port itself was quiet, except for dredge barges and tugs anchored out and awaiting good weather to get back out into the inlet to dredge more sand. There was one 230 ft. mega-yacht at Derecktor Shipyard called 'Freedom'. There was also a ship called 'Angel' in the world's largest travel lift (we believe this ship brought supplies to Abaco following Dorian). It looked tiny compared to 'Freedom'.

As we paddled north along the shore, we came across the tug 'Dawn Star' that does youth training.

We also got a chance to see this old Trumpy motoryacht that we view in the distance when we cross the north bridge each time. Although it was probably gorgeous back in its heyday, it is now almost a derelict with water being pumped out of one of the ports in the side (look closely and you can see the water coming out by the rust spot in the back).

One of the small commercial marinas had what looked to be a Mark 5 Navy Seal special operations vessel, which was similar to the one we visited on land at the Seal Museum a couple of years ago.

Between marinas, there were quite a few older houses and this one even had palm trees growing out of it!

We made it has far as Riverside Marina and this boatyard has lots of hurricane damaged boats in it. Look at this poor trimaran...

These were Sunsail and Moorings Charter catamarans that were damaged. We didn't recognize any of the names from pre-Dorian charter boats in Abaco, so they were most likely from the last hurricane in the Virgin Islands. 

This trawler was down to the hull.

The most interesting part of our trip was when we came across this huge dismasted sailboat anchored just off the Derecktor Shipyard. It had brand new docklines on it and towing plates welded on the bow, so it most likely had just been towed in from afar and was perhaps awaiting haul out for repairs. Later Dave did some online research and discovered that this 165 ft. yacht had quite a history. Back in Hurricane Wilma, 'Legacy' dragged anchor in Key West and ended up aground in the shallows of a marine sanctuary (there were millions of dollars of lawsuits for this). It sat there for quite some time since it was in 3 ft. of water and needs 11 ft. to float. Eventually a trench was dredged to get it free, and it ended up in Key West and then went to a boatyard in Freeport, Bahamas. After that no one had heard anything about it for years. Hopefully it will get refurbished to its former glory.

We never know what we are going to come across when we are exploring, and this was one trip we can do again and again and see different things each time. One of the fun things about kayaking is all the tight places we can get into to see everything up close.

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Inlet Exploration

What an interesting morning we had today! We launched the kayaks at the end of Cove Rd. and paddled across the Intracoastal Waterway to the St. Lucie Inlet Preserve State Park on Jupiter Island. We landed at the official kayak spot, paid our user fee, and walked the 3/4 mile long boardwalk to the ocean. 

We even went over the bridge that we paddled under several weeks ago when traversing the kayak trail.

Once at the beach, our goal was to walk to the inlet. The only people we saw were a few park rangers picking up garbage that had washed in. 

One of the rangers was really funny and apologized for all the people we must have met along the way. We gave him the hilarious Halloween plastic skull we found for the front of his John Deere Gator. 

He was also very knowledgeable about the island and the inlet's jetty, which has been damaged and broken up from numerous hurricanes. The jetty is slated to be restored and extended soon. We saw the survey markers in our travels.

The ranger told us how to get to the inside passage road that they use for traveling the island. This included the trail to the keyhole pond off the inlet called "Hole in the Wall," which at one point in history was a fish camp with a now shoaled in entrance from the inlet. We found the path that leads to this shallow body of water. I don't think we could even kayak through it.

We decided to continue for a while on the ranger trail towards the inlet and ended up on a bluff overlooking the water that had been eroding away. This really brought back memories of exploring down at Little Harbour in Abaco, although the cliff wasn't as high. 

The trail looked to either end or became very scrubby and grown in, so we turned around for the long trek back to the kayaks, since we only had our Crocs on. Next time we will bring our sneakers and continue as far as possible. This was a great morning exercise work-out with about 4 miles of walking plus paddling before and after!  

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Starting Line

RC sailboat racing has been getting more and more competitive. More boats = more action with great starts and some pretty close finishes too. Dave has his good and not so good races, but it is all fun (he is sail #31). 

I don't always go to these practice races that take place twice a week, but when I do, it also gives me the opportunity to walk around the pond and explore some the streets nearby. Today I did some birding and found this gorgeous Great White Egret in its breeding plumage, who posed nicely for a photo.

I also saw a pair of Hooded Mergansers preening in the spray of a fountain in a retention pond. The male had a white head and breast, and the female was mostly brown. The photo was taken from afar, but you can tell we have haven't had much rain lately with the ponds being quite low on water.

Such is the boring life of these two old goats. However, we did do something a bit more exciting by taking the kayaks down to Peanut Island in Lake Worth. It was a cloudy day (we even got rained on at one point), but that kept the crowds away. The water was crystal clear with the incoming tide, so Dave had a great snorkel adventure while I walked the perimeter of the island. We saw two large freighters come into the port along with four tugboats, and there was also a barge removing sunken derelict vessels. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my camera! Oh well, I guess that is also a part of being an old goat. 😉

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2022!

Happy New Year! It has been a whirlwind week leading up to 2022, with absolutely gorgeous weather that we have been taking advantage of. Although it didn't seem like there were as many holiday visitors in this area (we expected a lot more), the tourists that were here must have been loving the 80-degree sunny weather too. Water activities for us happened daily, with boating with Barb and Barry on their boat and then on ours to our favorite spots, kayaking, sailing, RC sailboat racing, and some pool time. Even at night it was 75 degrees and perfect for walks under the stars. We also test drove a friend's 1966 Boston Whaler that Dave has been working on, that has been sitting for 2-3 years. Considering its age, it is in great shape (including a mahogany center console that had been previously restored), but still needs a bit of tweaking, engine and prop wise. We also went with Barry and Barb for our annual car tour of the local Christmas light displays, but nothing could compare to The Mansion on the beach's yearly show. There were more lights than ever and this season they allowed the public to access the front yard of the property to view them up close. What fun it was for the four of us to wander and take it all in, including being able to carefully stick our heads up into one of the lower trees and see the lights from inside. My photos washed out the colors, so I 'borrowed' these from Facebook (thank you photographers and thank you to the owners of The Mansion!). 

Have a healthy and happy new year everyone!