Up, over, through, under water - back home for Thanksgiving - sad boat update

Always around, over, through, or under ocean, river or stream

We met our good friends Radeen and Hayden for dinner at the Harbor Cove Marina Restaurant.  Since it was our last night, and we had lots of packing to do, they drove up from Stuart.  Thank you.

They are using Mack Sails to order many of their upgrades to their Island Packet 35, Island Spirit.  They are doing much of the work themselves. Impressive. DIY

   The Hinckley Boat Yard (like the boat maker in Maine) is a few miles upriver from Stuart and reputed to do good work.

The best thing we did before we left was to visit Heathcote Botanical Gardens in Fort Pierce.

This botanical garden has one of the largest outdoor bonsai exhibits in the USA.

 

Quite a few trees.

 

 

The herb garden

 

 

 

A Japanese garden

 

 

A greenhouse sales area

A butterfly garden with many flying around – yellow Julia, Monarchs,

A rain forest area with orchids.

Beautiful mosaic benches are placed throughout the garden.  I want one of these.  “You can make one.” Echoes in my ears.

 

 

 

For the next night a lights show throughout the garden was set up by volunteers; working hard to get ready.  Great idea to bring people to the garden in the “down” winter time of Florida.

For about 2 hours we ambled around all the different gardens.

Plumbago in front of the parked car.

 

citrus

 

 

Railing of sticks

 

 

Dwarf Buddha's Belly Bamboo 

Lots of good labeling.  To me, that's a sign of a good garden.

Friday: Back to the boat to pack the car.  We stayed in Palm Beach one night before using Palm Beach Airport to fly to Boston.  Fun to walk the beach and let Mazu run (too cold to swim.)

 ESA (Emotional Support Animal), Mazu, walked through the metal detector on her own and flew at our feet for 3 hours to Boston.  She was so good. Looking up from Drew’s feet.

 

 

Air views of the ocean we had just sailed.

 

Back to woodland walks, New England’s raw fall.  All the mallards were paired up even in the non-breeding season, swimming the Exeter River.

First snow in the back woods off of our deck.

BOAT NEWS

News and updates from Whiticar Boat Yard on Shawnee over the last 10 days has been spotty at best – the boat lift is broken so they can’t take the boat out to clean and paint the bottom,  repaint the boot stripe and do extensive work including refinishing the cabin teak floors.  They have given no estimates of the work they plan to do or will do while it’s in the water.   They have given no estimates of the time it will take.  We are waiting…

My evaluation of a good boat yard, and we’ve only experienced two, includes doing the work: 1) on time, 2) in budget, 3) everything works.  The two excellent boat yards are Maine Yacht Yard in Portland, Maine with Brian Harris, manager, and Zimmerman Boat Yard in Mathews, VA and Southport, NC owned by Steve Zimmerman.

We aren’t picking up Shawnee until after Jan. 20^th so we’ll see how it goes, and keep you posted.

Happy Holidays!!

 Our biggest present will be a new grandson in Bangor, Maine  - name undetermined, due Dec. 18.