Who says there aren't Pirates Out here!

No not really it is the NINA and the PINTA. They are 35 year old replicas that have been sailing around the world and are going to be on display this weekend. It had a fairly young crew on board and they stayed here at the Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart with us last night. They said they have been through the Panama canal about 7 times and rode out a couple Hurricanes and the boats are still doing well. But they are an interesting looking crew! But I guess a lot of people think that the Win Star is an interesting crew too with Mom, Dad, Wheelchair Ray and his Pirate Dog !

3-5-15 Stuart

We entered past the St Lucie Inlet through Jensen Beach and Stuart area through a couple bridges and decided to stay at the Sunset Bay Marina. It is a very nice Municipal Marina with many boats from up North that have been coming here for years and spending their winters. About half of them live at the docks but the rest live out on moorings and go back and forth. The marina has set up lounges for them and large picnic areas. In the morning it looks like retiree row when they all come in on inflatables and join with others on shore for coffee time and it looks like at night it is bring your own dish dinner almost every night. It is hard to believe how many boaters do this, there must be over 200 in this marina alone, many also from Canada and the Great Lakes too. Some I talked to went back and forth for years and now just leave their boats here for the summer in dry dock and come back each fall and put them back in the water and move on board. Seems to be one of the most friendly areas we have come across and they said that some had waited years to be able to get in here. It is also surrounded by restuarants and an easy walk to town where there are little shops and of course Ice Cream / Fudge shops, sounds perfect!

3-3-15 Palm Beack to Jupiter

Heading North up the Intra Coastal after leaving Palm Beach it was a nice Sunny day but still windy so we took the slow road through Manatee Zones. Many boats still heading South so we figured we must be going the wrong way? A lot of new construction along the way and this area seemed less populated along the water than anything else we had seen in a while. As we come up on Jupiter inlet we can see the lighthouse at the opening and the waves breaking through the inlet. We then continued
on toward Stuart.

3-1-15 Palm Beach

Nice Marina in Palm Beach that we stayed at for a couple of days. Since they gave Fran a bottle of wine when we got there I think she is ready to mellow and relax for a few. They took us all by courtesy shuttle up to town and we had dinner at Duffy's Sports bar and did some shopping at Publix.
Lots of nice people that are from all over the country seem to bring their boats and stay at these marinas for a couple months for the winter.