Staying in Fort Pierce

 Shawnee at the slip

After we thought about it for a minute we decided to just stay here in Harbor Town Marina, Fort Pierce, FL.  It's half the price of Coconut Grove, amenities are closer, a pool, dinghy access to beaches and fun spots, an amazingly large and vibrant Saturday morning farmers market

Quite a selection of mushroom varieties

with jazz society bands and a large area of arts and crafts tents,
$5 first run movies, Publix Market and CVS across the street, on site good restaurant with daily live music.

And my daughter Sarah and family - husband, 2 year old and 3 month old are coming to visit in mid March.  My son-in-law, Yeang, is very excited because there is good scuba diving with a 1715 Spanish galleon wreck 200 yards off the beach. 

We did go out and sail on Monday...hurray.  We sailed out the inlet after a much needed pump out at the Harbor Town Marina dock -- the holding tank - required by law now to keep our oceans cleaner - especially for ocean liners.  A beautiful sail for 4 hours.

After talking with acquaintances Bob and Trudy from Boston, we found out there is TV cable access at the dock.  We plugged in our cable from dock to TV threading the cable through the Doret vent and found the reception so-so.  After telling the marina dock master our reception was fuzzy he came the next day to inspect the box, and they found there was a problem.  After the fix we still didn't get excellent reception so they made us a new larger cable -- presto -- super reception and the ability to watch the Grammy awards.  Yes!  Nice, courteous, free service that works.

Sticking to keeping this a sailing blog - I decided to interview people on our dock and ask what they are doing.  Cleaning the boat was by far the greatest response, others were repairing various aspects of their boats or trying to upgrade systems - every day.

It's amazing to see where all these sail, catamarans and power boats hail from.  As I paddle board around the waterways or walk down the dock here are the places written on their sterns:  
Subtle, KY, 
New Orleans, LA,
Palm Beach, FL,
Meredith, NH, 
Boston, MA
Summitt, NJ
Crystal Lakes, CO
Cocoa, FL
Hilton Head, SC
Beaufort, NC
Beaufort, SC
Sunset, SC

An osprey swinging around on the anemometer at the top of a mast.

I pumped up the paddle board (30 lbs) and slid it into the water.  Mazu jumped aboard on her own.
We stepped onto the board off of the dinghy:

My first outing in a while with Mazu.

Several people called out from their cockpits, "How'd you get your dog to do that?"

After an early Valentine's drink at the restaurant the moon rose over the mangroves protecting the marina.