Floating for a month in Stuart, Florida

Sunrise over Stuart

TIKA's amazing little galley

TIKA's lower helm, entertainment center (ha) and table.

Ok, where is Stuart, Florida?  Stuart in north of Jupiter, Florida, where Burt Reynolds has a theater, or a little further north of West Palm Beach, home of Rush Limbaugh.  Stuart is a real boater city.  From Stuart, you could go south to the Keys, east to the Bahamas, west to Fort Meyer's (through canals, locks and Lake Okeechobee). Or you can go north all the way to Canada on the intracoastal waterway, inland rivers and canals. It is a great place because Stuart is boater friendly.  What does that mean? Well the marina's are near downtown and it is a short walk to the historic business center with many restaurants and shops.  Boater friendly also means they have a free bus system that takes you to all the shopping centers and movie theaters.  The marina we are at also has a free bus service twice a week to take you to places like Publix (grocery store), Home Depot, CVS, Harbor Freight Tools, West Marine, and the most heavenly place of all Wal-Mart.  Boater friendly also means easy to bicycle around.  Our marina has free bicycles you can borrow and pedal to your hearts content.  Most importantly, Stuart is in the most southern of the three climate zones of Florida.  Generally days are in the high 70's and lows are only about 10-15 degrees less.  This is important if your boat is on a mooring ball and you don't use a heater or air conditioner without running a generator.
So some of you might want to know what it is like to live on a boat for several months while you cruise to some great destinations.  First of all, boaters have hours like farmers....up at sunrise (see the beautiful picture) and in bed not too long after sunset.  In the winter in southern Florida, that means up before 7 and in bed not too long after boaters midnight....8:00pm.  You can watch TV in the evenings, but when you are on a mooring ball, that means using precious battery power.  We usually recharge our house batteries in the evening every other day and watch TV while the generator is running.  Life on board means preparing meals just like at home.  We mix eating at local restaurants and fixing meals on board.  A boater friendly town means many "happy hours" and "lunch/dinner specials" Stuart has a great place called Duffy's Sports bar which has 40% off between 2-4 pm weekdays, if you have their customer loyalty card.....we do, of course.

We have a gas range and oven, small refrigerator, microwave, and even a Kuerig coffee maker.  Our most valuable player in the kitchen is the sodastream.  It saves a tremendous amount of space storing beverages and you can make what you need on demand....and believe me, Captain Morgan and Coke is in demand when at sea.  We have managed to store about a months worth of food on board including some frozen meats.  We also have a gas grill for cooking out.  With grocery stores close, we are typically running in to resupply items with shorter shelf lives, like milk, yogurt, fruits and fresh veggies.

Daily life on board is a combination of work, (boat repairs, laundry, etc), recreation (riding bikes, visiting, eating and drinking with boat friends....wherever and whenever),  and provisioning trips (shopping).  We keep in touch with the world through the internet.  Our Marina has a lounge with free Wi-Fi or we have 4G service through a personal hotspot on our phone.

While on a mooring ball, trips to the marina are by our trustworthy inflatable dinghy.  If our boat is our home, the dinghy is our car.   You can't get anywhere without taking the dinghy in to shore.  My goal this season is to get Marlene "dinghy qualified" to go in and out to shore on her own. For some reason, women don't have the upper body strength to easily start an outboard.  The Admiral is getting better, however.   While Stuart is a great place for a break, it is also a great place to study the weather and determine where our next destination will be.  We are thinking Miami and the Keys.  We still have a couple weeks here to make plans.