Day 6 - Stuart

Today started with watching the SpaceX launch.............finally. I could see the rocket flame and vapor trail for a minute or so. Unfortunately, we were too far away to hear anything. It was a beautiful morning as was the rest of the day, but there were a couple of adventurous moments. We had a bit of a scare as we left the marina. Some crew team boats were out practicing and their path went across the very narrow and shallow channel heading out of the marina. I had to slow down and then the wind started to push us out of the channel. I had read that there was an underwater obstruction on the south side of the channel and was trying to be very careful, but we ended up experiencing a couple of thumps. Once we got past the rowers and back in the ICW, I picked up speed testing for the any vibrations which would indicate some prop damage. Fortunately, the boat seemed to be running fine and there were no vibrations. We won't know for sure until the boat gets hauled out at the end of the month.

The ICW was wide on most of the trip today and we were able to maintain a faster speed. A few times we had to slow down in manatee zones and frequently for smaller boats. We haven't seen a manatee yet, but we are observing the posted rules. I don't really want to hit one. You really have to pay attention to the signs indicating if the manatee zones include the ICW channel or not.

The most excitement came as we approached the entrance to the St. Lucie Estuary which leads to Stuart. It was a very narrow channel with extremely significant shoaling on both sides. In addition, there were half a dozen boats speeding in from the ocean on our left. We were able to break into the stream of boats, but not after experiencing a lot of wake and water coming over the bow and roof of the boat. The entrance was extremely confusing, but I just followed a sport fishing boat figuring that he knew the way in. We knew that we had one bridge opening to get through and it only opens on the hour and half-hour. We slowed down to try and time it correctly, and were basically successful. We only had to wait a few minutes at the bridge for it to open.

Our marina was just on the other side of the bridge and we had an uneventful docking. We are again surrounded by some huge boats, but Sunset Bay is a very nice marina and has a resort vibe. It is a very large marina, but ironically, as we were walking down the dock to the office we saw a boat that we recognized from Osprey Point, our home marina. I knocked on the hull to get our friends attention and let them know that we were here. We didn't realize this was the marina they came to every winter. Another "small boat world" experience.

It was easy to see how the marina got the name.

This is a very nice area with a wooden walkway along the river and up to the town center. There town includes many nice shops and restaurants. We are staying here for two days and plan to relax and enjoy tomorrow.

We will head back north on Friday morning. Not sure about our first stop yet. I'll work on getting a reservation tomorrow.