Florida’s Treasure Coast Fort Pierce City Marina Dec.14, 2015- Jan.18, 2016
We have come to really feel at home in city marinas. Usually their rate per foot for dockage is less than the nearby private marinas. Rates by the night at all marinas are quite pricey, but by the month they are much more affordable. Yup, the Yankee in us still appreciates a good deal...and the resulting longer-term residents are more down-to-earth and welcoming to the new-comers. About 4pm, a gathering spot begins to fill up and we swap stories, compare notes and enjoy a cold one. After a month shoreside we move on to attractive out-of-the-way creeks and bays, dropping our anchor in a different one every few nights.
The downtown waterfront of Ft. Pierce is a center of activities. On Wednesdays and Saturdays it becomes a popular venue for The Green Market, the Farmer’s Market and a showplace for the local artisans. The deep sea charter fishing fleet departs from the city docks each day, taking advantage of the nearby Ft. Pierce Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean.
Art abounds in Historic Downtown Ft. Pierce... murals, sculptures, 3-dimensional hand-painted artifacts to name a few. The library features a rotating gallery on its street level. Art Mundo: a Center for Creative Expression provides studio and gallery space for over 40 artists offering art classes to the interested public. North of the City Marina,The W.E. Backus Gallery and Museum celebrates a favorite son who created scenes of real Florida throughout the mid-1900s. He also encouraged local black artists to persevere in creating works of art. Selling their framed oil paintings by the roadside, they became known as The Highwayman. Their iconic scenes are still being offered for sale today. At Christmastime the Park south of the City Marina features holiday music with red, white and green lights wrapped around a multitude of palm trees intricately pulsing to the beat.
An added pleasure for us was to connect with Darcy’s hometown classmate Alan and his wife Pat. They are enjoying South Florida on nearby South Hutchinson Island from October to May. Alan referees high school baseball and basketball games in the area. We joined them each Sunday morning at the Reach Church at Archie’s Outdoor Seabreeze Cafe. Pat graciously made us dinner on occasion and then we played music. They are experienced guitar players; we are just beginning with our ukuleles. They taught us a lot about playing with a group. What fun!
Crossing the Okeechobee January 18-25
What a difference a day makes! Today was a beautiful cruise along the bottom of Lake Okeechobee and along the Caloosahatchee River to the Franklin Locks just east of Ft Myers, but look at the day before. We started out with “Summertime” being crosswise in the Mayaca Lock....learning experience! The only thing hurt were our egos! We then headed across Lake Okeechobee using the previous evening’s forecast. (Weathermen are the only people in the world that can be consistently wrong and still get paid.) As we headed for the rim route around the lake we were told that there was a bridge that would likely not open due to high winds. We should have locked back through to the relative comfort of the St. Lucie Canal, but decided to move on across the lake with another boat. We soon encountered the wrath of Okeechobee...20-25 knot winds out of the northwest creating short 4 ft waves directly on our beam(side). Boy, did we rock and roll! Very quickly we decided to tack like a sail boat so that the waves no longer hit us broadside...much better, but still not great. 3-1/2 hr later we locked through to Clewiston, famous for the Roland and Mary Ann Martin’s Bass Fishing Resort. When we left our topside steering station and returned below, our salon looked like a bomb had gone off with everything on the floor!
Wherever the Army Corps of Engineers operates a lock, it's likely that you'll also find an RV Park and a small marina. Because it's a Federal project, the National Senior Pass is accepted...1/2 price for older Americans...yeah! One of our favorite pastimes is to listen to the lock tender as he prepares the chamber for the eastbound and westbound boats. Channel 13 on the VHF radio lets us hear both the requests to lock through from the boaters and the lock tender's resulting directives...always interesting! We noticed that we boating folks tend to be more chummy than the RVers. We help each other with the lines as boats arrive or depart the docks. If there is a mechanical breakdown amongst us, everybody turns to and lends a hand. We gather at the day's end and swap stories. Meanwhile, the only RVers we come across are the ones walking their dogs. The others are inside their rigs or tucked on the waterside reading a book...no sense of community for them!
We have come to really feel at home in city marinas. Usually their rate per foot for dockage is less than the nearby private marinas. Rates by the night at all marinas are quite pricey, but by the month they are much more affordable. Yup, the Yankee in us still appreciates a good deal...and the resulting longer-term residents are more down-to-earth and welcoming to the new-comers. About 4pm, a gathering spot begins to fill up and we swap stories, compare notes and enjoy a cold one. After a month shoreside we move on to attractive out-of-the-way creeks and bays, dropping our anchor in a different one every few nights.
The downtown waterfront of Ft. Pierce is a center of activities. On Wednesdays and Saturdays it becomes a popular venue for The Green Market, the Farmer’s Market and a showplace for the local artisans. The deep sea charter fishing fleet departs from the city docks each day, taking advantage of the nearby Ft. Pierce Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean. 
Art abounds in Historic Downtown Ft. Pierce... murals, sculptures, 3-dimensional hand-painted artifacts to name a few. The library features a rotating gallery on its street level. Art Mundo: a Center for Creative Expression provides studio and gallery space for over 40 artists offering art classes to the interested public. North of the City Marina,The W.E. Backus Gallery and Museum celebrates a favorite son who created scenes of real Florida throughout the mid-1900s. He also encouraged local black artists to persevere in creating works of art. Selling their framed oil paintings by the roadside, they became known as The Highwayman. Their iconic scenes are still being offered for sale today. At Christmastime the Park south of the City Marina features holiday music with red, white and green lights wrapped around a multitude of palm trees intricately pulsing to the beat.
An added pleasure for us was to connect with Darcy’s hometown classmate Alan and his wife Pat. They are enjoying South Florida on nearby South Hutchinson Island from October to May. Alan referees high school baseball and basketball games in the area. We joined them each Sunday morning at the Reach Church at Archie’s Outdoor Seabreeze Cafe. Pat graciously made us dinner on occasion and then we played music. They are experienced guitar players; we are just beginning with our ukuleles. They taught us a lot about playing with a group. What fun!
Crossing the Okeechobee January 18-25
What a difference a day makes! Today was a beautiful cruise along the bottom of Lake Okeechobee and along the Caloosahatchee River to the Franklin Locks just east of Ft Myers, but look at the day before. We started out with “Summertime” being crosswise in the Mayaca Lock....learning experience! The only thing hurt were our egos! We then headed across Lake Okeechobee using the previous evening’s forecast. (Weathermen are the only people in the world that can be consistently wrong and still get paid.) As we headed for the rim route around the lake we were told that there was a bridge that would likely not open due to high winds. We should have locked back through to the relative comfort of the St. Lucie Canal, but decided to move on across the lake with another boat. We soon encountered the wrath of Okeechobee...20-25 knot winds out of the northwest creating short 4 ft waves directly on our beam(side). Boy, did we rock and roll! Very quickly we decided to tack like a sail boat so that the waves no longer hit us broadside...much better, but still not great. 3-1/2 hr later we locked through to Clewiston, famous for the Roland and Mary Ann Martin’s Bass Fishing Resort. When we left our topside steering station and returned below, our salon looked like a bomb had gone off with everything on the floor!
Wherever the Army Corps of Engineers operates a lock, it's likely that you'll also find an RV Park and a small marina. Because it's a Federal project, the National Senior Pass is accepted...1/2 price for older Americans...yeah! One of our favorite pastimes is to listen to the lock tender as he prepares the chamber for the eastbound and westbound boats. Channel 13 on the VHF radio lets us hear both the requests to lock through from the boaters and the lock tender's resulting directives...always interesting! We noticed that we boating folks tend to be more chummy than the RVers. We help each other with the lines as boats arrive or depart the docks. If there is a mechanical breakdown amongst us, everybody turns to and lends a hand. We gather at the day's end and swap stories. Meanwhile, the only RVers we come across are the ones walking their dogs. The others are inside their rigs or tucked on the waterside reading a book...no sense of community for them!
