February 11, 2007

I am still at the Jones Fruit dock because as you already know it is too early to start north on the Intracoastal Waterway at this point because temperatures ahead of me in Florida are still in the 30’s some mornings and being five days away from Georgia makes it still pretty cold up there. I may go a ways up on Friday or the weekend and spend it on anchor. I am going to have to buy fuel whenever I find a place that is convenient in the next couple days running.

It was a really nice day and all of the boats got out yesterday and ran up and down the waterway first one way and then back up so there were wakes galore and since I am on a face dock I got to feel all of them. It was conducive to nap taking until the sport fisherman folks go by at full throttle. I guess those boats don’t run at anything less. It was and interesting day if you like boats and enjoy seeing all of the different kinds from kayaks to eighty foot cruisers and all makes and sizes. I even had a couple on big jet skis which looked like they would seat three on each one. The man had a bassett hound on with him. He was riding in the seat of front of the handlebars and the man had clipped the kill switch to his collar so it would stop if he fell off and he had a big life jacket on. He looked as though he had done this many times and was just looking around at things as they went slowly by.

I met a couple who owns another boat here at the dock. Gary and Abbey were cleaning it up after the trip to Lake OkeeChobee on it. It is a small cruiser like mine and they had been on a five day trip in it. They live up the street and when they finished with the Sunday newspaper they brought it down for me to read. When I got to the real estate section I was just astounded at the asking prices for some of the homes in the Indian River area. One section featured only houses above one million dollars and in Texas what we would call a beginners house an old two bedroom, one bath with not garage just a carport was offered for $200,000. A couple of homes just a block or so from me are up for sale for $350,000. You certainly pay for the view either of the waterway or the ocean.
I walked the one mile from here to the ocean yesterday and back and a couple of times my back hurt so bad I just sat down for a bit. When I got to the ocean, the public access to the beach was about three cars wide and extended from A1A to the ocean and the rest was private beach for the people who live on it.

About six o’clock yesterday afternoon a 48 foot Kadey Krogen trawler called a whaleback approached the dock and asked for dockage. She was built in 1990 and owned by a couple who has been living aboard her for four and one half years. They sold everything when the last child left for school and took off. They are headed to the Abacos for a while and then bringing the boat back to Stuart, Florida and putting her on a ship for the west coast and there home port of San Francisco. She was very beautiful on the outside and on the inside she was all freshly done teak. She has every convenience a home has and she moves. It was powered with a single Caterpillar engine with generator and bow thruster for docking more easily. Richard Jones and I got a tour of her and found her to be very seaworthy. The living quarters are all on one level and then she has a pilot house for steering, instruments, chart table and seating for easily six people up there with a 360 degree visibility so you can see what is coming and going all around you. From the living quarters to the pilot house is up twelve stairs in a circular fashion. This was a great way to end the day.

It was overcast by nightfall and I sat on the back of my craft and let the no-see-ums bite me just to hear the birds as they came through on one last pass before going to roost for the night. When you hear the sound that is kind of a snort you know the dolphins are coming. Last night there was a pretty good group. One larger one, two smaller ones, and a mother and her baby that came to the surface together and dove together, with their fins in the exact same place each time when the came up for air. Lucy, the pelican, comes by so close to the boat that I am sure that she is checking me out to make sure all is okay on that last pass of the day. That is such a pleasant feeling and the tranquility of the scene makes one feel ready to go to roost as well. I thought I would mind not moving every day but I have come to value the time spent in one place as much as the new things around each and every corner.

I want to thank you all for your comments and emails and also the ones who are staying in touch by phone, I will never get used to my pocket ringing and I am looking for the phone. I have got to figure out the photo thing on this site and that is one of my projects for the day.