photo #1: Stuart mooring field
photo #2: bridge over the St. Lucie River
photo #3: looking toward the marina office from Raven's stern
[Hilde’s log]
Another beautiful day in Florida. After a dawn of soft grey air and overcast skies the day has opened up to bright blue skies and brilliant sunshine. David has gone ashore to return a widget to West Marine and I am listening to the hum of the generator and trying to talk myself out of cleaning the locker under the sink. It reeks of mildew, but I am sort of hoping it will clean itself while I am writing.
We’ve had a couple of days of upheaval, caused by the untimely demise of the depth meter. The death of any instrument seems to require that all lockers be emptied, all stores unearthed, all closed spaces opened. That’s because you have to dismantle the boat to get to any of its systems, and because all spaces are crammed with what you need to live - everything from extra clothes and food to tools and lubricants. Day before yesterday was the Bad Day, which found me huddled in the stern of the boat surrounded by mounds of stuff from the cockpit lazarettes and David alternately below or crammed like Gumby down in those same lazarettes trying to figure out which part of the depth meter had croaked. When not hiding on the stern, I cleaned mildew off seldom seen bulkheads and longed for the desert.
As implied by its name, a depth meter tells you how deep the water is. That’s really important when you are in shallows and don’t want to get stuck. The waters of the ICW and the rivers, etc. of Florida are shallow and of course the Bahamas waters are also shallow, so we have to have a working depth meter. I now know that a depth meter has three parts, a “head” (the part that you read), a transducer (the part that sticks to the bottom of the boat and takes the measurements), and a wire between the head and the transducer that goes from the cockpit down into the bowels of the boat to be connected to the transducer. I will spare you the details, but after hours of testing and sliding in and out of the lazarette and removing wires and going to West Marine, and more testing, David figured out that the problem was not in the head ($$$) or in the transducer ($$) but in the wire itself, part of which had corroded (no $). So we now have a working depth meter and all it cost was our sanity for about 36 hours. The boat is put back together and life is once again good.
We celebrated by having friends Lindsay and Judy from Anastasia over for dinner. They are from Ft. Worth and know Clyde, Raven’s previous owner (they are the couple that knocked on our hull when we first came in to Stuart). We spent hours over dinner, comparing notes and talking about boats and ports and delivery jobs, and all sorts of things that interest only fellow boaters. They have been very kind to us, taking us to West Marine and the grocery store, and we have thoroughly enjoyed their company.
David and I also managed a walk around Stuart. There is a boardwalk that runs along the St. Lucie River, and when that peters out you find yourself in downtown Stuart (or at least the scenic downtown), on a main street full of galleries, junk shops, clothing stores, etc. Once we found the ice cream store, all was well. I had cappuccino chocolate chunk, which was frozen bliss. We enjoyed window shopping and peering into the river to catch sight of minnows and larger fish in pursuit of the minnows. Now that the repairs are made, we will be leaving tomorrow for Lake Worth, and then from there to Lighthouse Point (I think) where we have been invited to take a mooring by friends we met in 2006 in Maine. After we say goodbye to them, we will head for Port Everglades and (God willin’ and the creek don’t rise) we’ll cross at the next weather window. Finally!!!
I will keep that goal in mind, now, as I empty the shelves under the sink and see what is really there. Not the fun part of boat life, trust me.
Another beautiful day in Florida. After a dawn of soft grey air and overcast skies the day has opened up to bright blue skies and brilliant sunshine. David has gone ashore to return a widget to West Marine and I am listening to the hum of the generator and trying to talk myself out of cleaning the locker under the sink. It reeks of mildew, but I am sort of hoping it will clean itself while I am writing.
We’ve had a couple of days of upheaval, caused by the untimely demise of the depth meter. The death of any instrument seems to require that all lockers be emptied, all stores unearthed, all closed spaces opened. That’s because you have to dismantle the boat to get to any of its systems, and because all spaces are crammed with what you need to live - everything from extra clothes and food to tools and lubricants. Day before yesterday was the Bad Day, which found me huddled in the stern of the boat surrounded by mounds of stuff from the cockpit lazarettes and David alternately below or crammed like Gumby down in those same lazarettes trying to figure out which part of the depth meter had croaked. When not hiding on the stern, I cleaned mildew off seldom seen bulkheads and longed for the desert.
As implied by its name, a depth meter tells you how deep the water is. That’s really important when you are in shallows and don’t want to get stuck. The waters of the ICW and the rivers, etc. of Florida are shallow and of course the Bahamas waters are also shallow, so we have to have a working depth meter. I now know that a depth meter has three parts, a “head” (the part that you read), a transducer (the part that sticks to the bottom of the boat and takes the measurements), and a wire between the head and the transducer that goes from the cockpit down into the bowels of the boat to be connected to the transducer. I will spare you the details, but after hours of testing and sliding in and out of the lazarette and removing wires and going to West Marine, and more testing, David figured out that the problem was not in the head ($$$) or in the transducer ($$) but in the wire itself, part of which had corroded (no $). So we now have a working depth meter and all it cost was our sanity for about 36 hours. The boat is put back together and life is once again good.
We celebrated by having friends Lindsay and Judy from Anastasia over for dinner. They are from Ft. Worth and know Clyde, Raven’s previous owner (they are the couple that knocked on our hull when we first came in to Stuart). We spent hours over dinner, comparing notes and talking about boats and ports and delivery jobs, and all sorts of things that interest only fellow boaters. They have been very kind to us, taking us to West Marine and the grocery store, and we have thoroughly enjoyed their company.
David and I also managed a walk around Stuart. There is a boardwalk that runs along the St. Lucie River, and when that peters out you find yourself in downtown Stuart (or at least the scenic downtown), on a main street full of galleries, junk shops, clothing stores, etc. Once we found the ice cream store, all was well. I had cappuccino chocolate chunk, which was frozen bliss. We enjoyed window shopping and peering into the river to catch sight of minnows and larger fish in pursuit of the minnows. Now that the repairs are made, we will be leaving tomorrow for Lake Worth, and then from there to Lighthouse Point (I think) where we have been invited to take a mooring by friends we met in 2006 in Maine. After we say goodbye to them, we will head for Port Everglades and (God willin’ and the creek don’t rise) we’ll cross at the next weather window. Finally!!!
I will keep that goal in mind, now, as I empty the shelves under the sink and see what is really there. Not the fun part of boat life, trust me.
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