The Fab Five Tour Fort Pierce Inlet

 What an awesome day yesterday was with Barb, Barry, and Jim joining us for another fun day on the water in Coqui. 

Barb and I are so lucky that we have our three 'boat boys'  to do all the work (and such hard work it is! 😉). 

The tide was low and and we had fun exploring the spoil island. There must be quite the parties here on the weekends.

We could not figure out what these poles are for, because if it is for bird nesting, they are at a strange angle.

Barb found this really kewl starfish stranded on the beach. After the photo opp, Dave put it back out into deeper water. 

We also went back to the sandbar up the creek that splits the state park at the inlet, along with touring the port, gigantic mega yacht travel lift, and marinas. Hopefully we can get in another boat outing before we leave for the north. Once again, another 10 day!! To top it all off, we saw a Space X launch of another 60 satellites. I knew it was going to happen, but lost track of time. I just happened to check the website 20 seconds before liftoff. Great timing!

Scouting

Another day, another island! For quite awhile we have wanted to launch the kayaks on the Indian River at a park near Bathtub Reef Beach on the southernmost end of Hutchinson Island. Today was predicted to have light east winds, so we were ready and portaged the yaks the short distance to the beach from the parking lot. 

Once we were out on the river, we found that the current was flying out and it was quite a sleigh ride...until we reminded ourselves that we had to paddle back into it once we turned around at our sandbar destination. Time for a change in plans and we headed across the river instead, crossing many sandbar shoals, towards a bunch of islands that were probably made from the dredging of the Intracoastal Waterway. We ended up at the cutest little island called Boy Scout Island. 

The water was clear, even though the tide was going out, and the sand was white and clean, along with the whole island which didn't have a speck of litter. Plus no one else was there and only a couple of fishermen were in the distance. Dave found trails to the north side of the island, and you can see the Stuart Causeway in the distance. 

Walking along the shoreline, we came across several old fallen trees that the roots made great pieces of artwork.

When it was time to head back to the mainland, which in this area is a skinny peninsula, the river was flat calm and we nicknamed it Indian Lake or to honor the Sea of Abaco, the "Sea of Stuart". That is Gilbert's House of Refuge in the distance, so you can tell how narrow the land is (the other side of the house is right on the ocean beach).

We were shocked to see a Portuguese Man-O-War jellyfish, and this one was still quite alive, complete with a small fish hiding in its tentacles. We also saw a turtle and lots of jumping mullets, but luckily no sharks that frequent this area (including a hammerhead!).

Once again we had another perfect day exploring new spots. We'll be back!

Find The Easter Bunny

That is a real rabbit hidden in the shade of our palm tree garden. It looked like it was posing for a photo shoot. 

Happy Easter everyone! Hopefully spring is here.

Spring Turkey Run Car Show

More normalcy! This past weekend, Dave, Barry, and Jim went to the Spring Turkey Run car show at the Daytona Speedway. This is the spring version of the gigantic show held at Thanksgiving. 

The guys weren't vaccinated in November, but they are now, so it was time to get back into the swing of things. Enjoy a few of the wild sights Dave saw during his day there. First up is this stretched Mazda Miata, powered by twin V-8s mounted in tandem.

A chopped and channeled 1947 Buick resto-mod.

1960s Fiat 600 gasser. Originally it had the engine in the rear.

This is an extended-extended 6 door cab mega dump hauler with four gas tanks (Dave thinks there were 4 more on the other side too).

A typical vendor's rig set up to spend the weekend at the swap meet.

This vendor had a beautiful array of mid-century Route 66 motoring memorabilia. 

Mean green late 50s Ford Fairlane. Notice the custom exhaust tips...

A Ford Model T doctor's coupe with three 2 barrel carbs.

A street legal tow car with a matching Legend class race car. It was powered with a Honda CBR1100. Plus there was a matching kiddie car!

Now hopefully we will be going to the original Turkey Run in the fall!

"Who Let The Dogs Out" Tour

Yesterday we found another new spot to explore by kayak. This time we launched at the Charlie Leighton Park in Palm City, along the St. Lucie River and the Okeechobee Waterway. The adventure was nicely diverse with mangrove island wilderness coupled with homes, canals, marinas, and boats. Unfortunately most of the canals we tried to go up had tons of non-stop barking dogs...good for the owners' security, but annoying for us quiet paddlers. They ranged from these chihuahuas, which we were hoping they wouldn't fall in and needed to be rescued (I originally was trying to get a photo of the pretty Whitehall dories)...

To a couple of big labs (we also saw what we were sure was the Abaco version of a mutt, called a potcake dog, complete with curled up tail and howling at us). Below you can also see that the water is quite high, most likely from the outflow of water being dumped from Lake Okeechobee, because of its high water levels. It is better to do it now than wait until hurricane season when there is more of chance of algae blooms with the hotter weather and water.

The labs had the quaintest house and huge property that they lived at (and being worked on). Notice the palm tree growing through the tiki hut...

Up one of these canals there was a dismasted sailboat. It brought back quite the memories from when we used to spend the winter in the Florida Keys and our friend Gary had a boat just like this. The boat, named Ara, ended up sinking down in Key West, making a fun salvage operation for the guys. This boat's name was the Lucky One, which was ironic considering its condition.

This No Dog canal was peaceful, lined with condos.

Then more memories came pouring back to us when we saw a Caliber 28, which we bought new and took to Dry Tortugas and our first ever trip to Abaco and Hope Town, way back in 1986. Ours was trimmed in burgundy and named Celebrity, because it drew lots of attention.

This Mainship photo is for Barry and Barb...

Back out in the waterway, what a line up of these Fleming motoryachts, all worth at least a million dollars!

While crossing the St. Lucie River, on the way back to the launch ramp, we spotted several dolphins feeding in the shallows. It was so much fun watching the mullets jump out of the water as the dolphins tried to catch them. What a turmoil they made too! Plus, since it was so shallow, they couldn't dive deep and were doing what I call sharking...going along with their fin out of the water. 

Back at the dock, I couldn't resist taking a photo of this perfect pelican, all decked out in its summer plumage. It was funny to see it looking down at me.

Despite being barked at 😉, this was still another fabulous morning on the water. It will also be a great place for the guys to go sailing next time. 

Fun At Sea And Land

We have been waiting for the perfect day to go out with friends Barb and Barry in Coqui and wow, yesterday was it! Since all of us, including our famous Boat Boy Jim, have been vaccinated for Covid (although 'youngster' Dave has only had one shot), we could go out and enjoy the day without worries or masks. We launched at Sandsprit Park in Port Salerno, and went down the ICW to Peck Lake. The smart boaters that we all are, we anchored with the bow into the wakes, and tied the stern to shore, so we could all get off and go over to the ocean beach. We had a spectacular walk with very few other people around, although it did start to get a touch busier when we left. Jim and Dave went swimming, but Jim refrained from body surfing this time so neither one of them came out bloody...which is good, because a large hammerhead shark washed up on Jensen Beach yesterday, so they are out there. We all brought picnic lunches and ate and chatted before meandering on our way. The chivalrous guys were in the sunny bow allowing us ladies to be under the shade of the bimini top.

After a stop at the sandbars by the inlet to explore the trails in the mangroves, we took a cruise through Manatee Pocket before hauling the boat out.

We sure were happy but tired boaters at the end of the day. What a fun adventure that we hope to repeat again soon!

Up The Creek

Today we made it to a new kayaking spot in Stuart. We had recently crossed a bridge while on the road near the St. Lucie River, eying some sailboats up a creek. I did some investigating by Google Earth and discovered it is called Krueger Creek. Hunting for water access, I also found a small park called Commissioners Park, where there happened to be a tiny little beach that we could launch the kayaks from. The park also has plaques honoring past mayors under donated trees along the walkway.

It wasn't a very long waterway to explore, but we still found a few interesting things along the way. The canal started out wide, but got quite narrow and ended at a culvert that we believe goes under the Stuart airport. 

We were jealous of this old style gas pump on a dock...

We always end up disturbing dogs whenever we kayak in people's backyards, but this time we came across a potbellied pig! At least we weren't barked at. 😉 The yard was totally fenced in, so it could wander and dig wherever it wanted to.

We also saw several night herons lazing on docks and I have never been quite this close to one before.

What a gorgeous tree with quite the root system...

This eclectic home near the mouth of the creek, had all sorts of nautical relics displayed with a live guard...RABBIT! 😉

Most of the boats we encountered weren't anything unusual except this one Chinese Junk without its sailing rig. It certainly had an appropriate name.

This was a nice morning paddling adventure and we have really been on the lookout for new places to explore. Now hopefully the winds will stay calm for us to get out on the water more.