Stuart, FL to Eau Gallie

Brrr, it’s cold. We recorded 29 degree weather for two nights in sunny ‘warm’ Florida. During the freeze, the town of Moore Haven lost power. On went the generator for about 5 hours until it was fixed. We were happy to have the genset. The wind was blowing with gusts up to 40 miles an hour. It appears that January and the beginning of February are not the best times to cruise in Florida. It was definitely nicer and less windy in December. The town of Moore Haven on the west side of Lake Okeechobee. There was not much to the town. The main place to eat out was the Eagles lodge, located about a block and a half from the docks. We never made it over there due to the wind and cold temperatures. You really have to look at wind speeds when crossing Lake Okeechobee. There were gale warnings on the lake during the wind storm.

After 3 days, we finally saw a break in the wind and the lake calmed down to less than a foot wave with a 2 second period. We left early at first light, in 35 degree weather, went through a lock just east of town and onto the rim route. There are two routes across the lake, the south rim route and the western lake route. We chose the lake route but had to take the rim route for about 10 miles before we could branch out to the lake. The rim route is a birders paradise. Unfortunately, we do not have a book of birds aboard to help us identify the different species. Along with the birds, the lake side of the rim route looked like everglades. There were reeds in water and in some places where an airboat could go through. The west end of the lake was shallow. We were reading around 6 feet in the channel. After traveling a quarter of the way across the depth became 12 feet, which is normal for Florida in the intercoastal. You have to be really careful if you go out of the channel boundaries which are around 75 feet wide.

At the east end of the lake is the Port Mayaca lock. The lock opens to the lake so you hope the east side of the lake is calm. When we arrived, we called the lockmaster and he informed us we should wait for the entrance to clear of the oncoming boat and then do a pass thru. Wow, our first pass thru. How civilized. Both doors were open and we transited the lock going very slowly. When we were through, we called the lockmaster informing him we were clear. We transited to the St Lucie River. We still had one lock to go to reach our destination of Stuart, Fl where we would have reservations to stay 3 days.

One day into our stay in Stuart, we lost power on the house side. The air conditioning power was running fine. We checked our power cords and found that one of them was melted. Oh boy. Kevin is guessing that during those freeze days in Moore Haven we may have been using more power than the cord is capable of. We plug two 30 amp cords into a 50 amp splitter. We did a little research and found that the maximum load on a 30 amp cord is actually 24 amps. Also when the town restored power during the freeze it could not been running at the right megahertz. We were happy we had Smart Plugs. Without them we could of had a boat fire.

Smart Plug electric cords are very spendy. We called around and could not find a smart cord in Stuart, Florida, where there are oodles of very large cruising boats. West Marine had a ship to store option that would deliver the following day. We did an online order to be delivered at the Stuart, FL store and we would Uber over to it. Oh my, that was a mistake. Bev made the local store her store and said ship to. Well, right next to the local store is a icon of a truck that had a zip code about 60 miles away. She called West Marine to cancel the order. Oh no you can’t. You have to wait until the items arrive at the store. We kept looking at the order and saw it was pending. West Marine has charged our credit card. On the day the order was supposed to be delivered, it did not show up. We contacted them and they said we will open a case to track the missing shipment. They said don’t worry, we do not charge the credit card until the order is delivered. That’s when we checked the card statement and yes it had been charged. They said the people working the case will get back to us in 24 to 72 hours. Well, it has been over 24 hours and there has been no contact by West Marine and no notification the items have arrived at the store south of Miami. We found out the Fort Pierce West Marine had the cords in stock. Since we had planned to cruise northward to Ft. Pierce anyway, we decided to buy them there. Ka ching, there goes another boat buck on a different credit card for the power cords. We must say, customer service is nonexistent any more. We plan to be a thorn in their side until they credit us for the items we never received. They offer no telephone customer service. It is only by online chat. How frustrating.

Fort Pierce is a nice little town with parks near the municipal city marina. On the first Friday evening of the month, vendors, musicians and food trucks set up in the adjacent park. On Saturday mornings there is a nice farmers market in the same park. We went into a restaurant where they had an ice cream shop off to the side. When we used cash for our purchase, they only gave bill change in return. I said hold it, where is my change. Well, they only give bills back, so they round down at 49 cents and round up at 50 cents. Then, they told us that all the restaurants are doing this. They would have gotten a tip if they had given us our change. It is an odd time, restauranst are adding the credit card fees to the bill and now they are rounding to the closet dollar. REALLY!

We left Ft. Pierce before the farmers market got going and cruised 42 miles to Melbourne, FL. It another windy day on the intercoastal and we were delighted by the dolphins flipping their fins all around us. They would cruise next to us, then cross under the boat and cruise the other side. Remember how shallow the intercoastal is. We have seen more than one dolphin with a damaged top fin.

We passed Melbourne for the little village of Eau Gallie. Try saying that on the VHF radio three times. We made our way into the Eau Gaillie river where the marina was located. It is a very protected marina with very little wind which made docking easy. Yes! We really liked Eau Gallie. It was a family owned marina with a nice sitting area for cruisers to meet each other, fire pit, bathrooms, laundry and a little town a blocks walk away.

We have had nasty wind for the last 15 days. According to the weather forecasts, the wind will calm down and we may even reach a 70 degree day. Woo Hoo.