Indiantown - Ihana's home for the summer

Today we finished our adventure for the first part of this year.  Over 3000 miles and 9 months, Duluth MN to Indiantown FL.  Very windy in the morning, lots of current (half tide and rising - yes!), as we left Stuart (and our buddy boat) and motored up the Okeechobee Waterway.

Half way up, we passed through the St. Lucie Lock. Then:  Fresh water! No tide! No current!  Flat water.  Easy day now - even Auto had no trouble at the helm.

We are now at the marina facedock. Starting to summerize the boat; haulout probably on Friday for the hot months down here in Florida.  Everything is a mess - some stuff stays on the boat. Some goes into climate-controlled storage. Some comes back to Minnesota with us (some to stay there, some comes back south with us in the Fall). Some (not much) into the trash.

Only a few days, or less, for sorting, storing, cleaning, engine and other boat maintenance, boat cover, haulout, etc.  Too busy.  It is sad to leave Ihana - but we will be back here, probably in November. Then - the Bahamas. More time with our buddy boat. And ... [TBD].

Today's boating adventure:

AIS track, 27 March 2013

approaching the first bridge past Stuart
on the Okeechobee Waterway

Bridge clearance: 54 feet
Our air draft: 51 feet
Clearance: 3 feet

along the Okeechobee Waterway

Fresh water, no tide, no current

Sunset at Sunset Bay

Photos taken by Ilona, in our dinghy, while commuting back to Ihana (on a mooring ball) from a marina potluck and (very) happy hour - with great people - in Stuart, Florida.

March 17, 2013

Ihana at Sunset, Stuart FL

Dinghy Dock - Stuart, FL

The Mooring Field during the norther winds -
Stuart, FL

to Stuart - finally

Almost to Indiantown for our haulout and summerizing the boat at the end of the month - just 20 more miles, up the Okeechobee Waterway, from Stuart towards Lake Okeechobee.

from Hobe Sound to Stuart - March 16, 2013

Fishermen on Hobe Sound - note the shallow water out of the ICW channel

Bob enjoying a beautiful (but cool) morning,
motoring from our anchorage on Hobe Sound

on the road again

Left Palm Beach this morning. Now anchored in Hobe Sound, north of Jupiter on the ICW. We did a whopping 16 miles today! Tomorrow - to Stuart, then there until we move to Indiantown for haulout on March 27. Probably.

Lighthouse at Jupiter Inlet on the ICW

Trailersailors in Florida

A whole lot of friends from the Trailer Sailors Assn. [trailersailors.org] are here or coming down to Florida:

Joan and Laurence Wright: s/v-Tranquility.  In Indiantown.  They will be there when we haul out for the summer in a couple of weeks.  We get to use their truck!

Kira, Lenore and Chris Holderness: Visited us yesterday, here in North Palm Beach - they have been spending a week, drove down from Ontario.

Diana and Mike Nelson: Coming soon. We will rent a car and join them for a Passover Seder in Vero Beach.  Maybe see them again in Indiantown again, shortly after that.

David and Joyce Craigie: Supposed to be driving to Stuart / Indiantown / next Monday.

and others that we probably will miss seeing:

Jerry Hardin: already launched somewhere, probably down in the Keys.

Howard and Kathy Staley: supposed to haul their boat [s/v Aeolus] down here in April for sailing somewhere.

and maybe some others we don't know about yet ...

Sunset on Ihana at Old Port Cove Marina, North Palm Beach, FL

Lenore, Kira and Chris Holderness
visiting us at Old Port Cove Marina
[shadow is Chris, taking the picture]

Lenore, Chris, and Kira - in the Atlantic Ocean
Juno Beach, Florida

with the Holderness family, at Loggerhead MarineLand
[Turtle repair shop and zoo]

almost 8 hours northbound

Boat is now tied down at dock - we made it up The Ditch all the way from Boca Raton (anchorage) to North Lake Worth (N. Palm Beach). Gusty winds outside! Winds were gusting up to 25 knots as we worked our way up the ICW - fortunately, most of the trip was following a weather shore with the SW to W wind.
11 bridges in 33 miles up the ICW from Boca Raton to North Palm Beach [plus one that was high enough not to need an opening, and one that was gone]. We ended up waiting for several of these bridges. Our speed did not match the openings - at full speed, we would arrive less than 5 minutes late for the next bridge opening ["Piss. Moan. Piss Moan. repeat ..."] Circle, circle, circle - burn off another 25 minutes going nowhere. 
The Ilona got a lot of knitting done. Bobby got a lot of helm time. Auto took the day off - complained that the winds were too disGUSTing ... Saw two sailboats hard aground on shoals. Dinner at the Sand Piper in the Old Port Marina tonight.  But first: Rum aboard, then Happy Hour - 
hell, we earned it.

Why didn't we go outside and avoid the bridges? How about 7 foot seas and 25 knot winds - that a good enough excuse?

Ihana goes north - March 6, 2013

From here, it is all on the inside, and only 33 miles to Stuart! Should get there in a few days (we're staying put here for a couple of duff days) - in time for a visit from the Holderness's [Holdernesses? Holderness'? oh, well ...] We have a one-girl kayak, if they have the girl.

Flagler Museum, Palm Beach
Flagler's Winter Home, photo taken from OUR winter home

Another marina full of mega-yachts - in Palm Beach, FL
well, somebody got all the money ...

Mouth of Mouse

aka Boca Raton

Motored up the ditch today, from Fort Lauderdale to Boca Raton, Florida. Anchored for the night in Lake Boca Raton.

AIS track 2-5-2013

This is where we are not. Guess why ...

Home - Roseville, MN 

This is where we are:

Our neighbors - buddy boat s/v Utopia

The crew:

Ilona - on s/v Ihana

Bob - on s/v Ihana

A Plan

Planning to leave Fort Lauderdale tomorrow - the only day for a week with decent weather and light-enough winds.  Expect to anchor in Boca Raton. Then on the next day to Palm Harbor Marina in Palm Beach.  Will stay there until it is good to continue on to Stuart [with a possible mid-trip anchorage in Hobe Sound or Peck Lake, if the weather cooperates].

Or not - our mileage may vary ...

Today - pumpout, diesel, water, groceries, load bikes.  Last bike ride in Lauderdale.

People

Besides Diane & Frank Albani, our buddy-boaters -

Derek Cohen (yesterday) - met him in the showers (!) at Annapolis; he drove up to see the Albanis yesterday (from Miami) - he's the guy who sails a Caliber 40 (like the Albanis) who had a bad passage from New York overnight to Cape May, the same day we ran for shelter inside Sandy Hook.

Peggy Kimmet - she came over for a 2-day visit yesterday and today, from a rented condo in Cape Coral (where she left her husband Jim, temporarily).

Chris, Lenore & Kira Holderness - coming to Orlando in a week; will probably see them in Stuart.

and, of course, several other boaters here in the Las Olas Marina in Fort Lauderdale.
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This month in Good Old Boat magazine, several friends had articles:

- Rob & Gabi Hoffman (Trailer Sailors); article by them about their boat CanCan which we crewed on last year at the Havasu Pocket Cruisers Convention.

- Mike and Diana Nelson (Trailer Sailors); article by them about using an iPad on a cruising boat; also expect to see them at their seder in Vero Beach later this month.

- Karen Larsen & Jerry Powlas (friends from Minneapolis); the owners, founders and editors of G.O.B. magazine
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who said cruising would ever be lonely?

In like a lion

Happy "In Like A Lion" Day.  It's March already.  Almost Spring, although the highs now are in the low 60s here in Fort Lauderdale.

And today begins the sequester. What is a sequester? -

if an equestrian rides a horse, then a sequestrian rides a seahorse ..