Truly a new day

The good news is we have all the metal work done for both the back cover and the bimini front. The canvas guy in Stuart came out in the morning and made his pattern (a process that involves tape, clamps, and plastic). He should have that done by end of next week, and will ship it to us wherever we are at the time. The front, however, will require us to find another canvas guy who will do the same thing; make a pattern and make our front cover.

Before

After

Before

After

Everyone done with their tasks we left the River Forest Yachting Center and immediately had to lock through the St. Lucie lock. They were set up for west bound traffic, and we were heading east, so they closed and raised an empty lock, then us and another small boat got lowered down, about eight feet. Nearly an hour passed by the time we were on our way.

From there, the rest of the journey along the St. Lucie River was twisty and busy. We were kept on our toes from both passing vessels and oncoming traffic. Meanwhile, various epics were happening on the radio. One vessel, a 42 foot boat, started to take on water while forty miles off shore, calling for assistance. While that drama was going on the coast guard announced that a prop plane crashed in Lake Okeechobee. While none of this excitement was near us, it did add to the tenseness of the day.

Once we made the turn north, two things of import happened. First, this was truly new and unnavigated waters for Cat-n-Dogs. Everywhere we went prior (with the one exception of traveling south from Ft. Myers to Naples) we'd traveled before. Until today. The second thing was that traffic just disappeared. The last couple of hours were straight and easy, making it a wonderful late afternoon.

The park at Ft Pierce City Marina

I must confess, we did have a bit of... confusion when we made the turn into the channel for Fort Pierce City Marina. By then it was 5:30 in the evening, and we turned west, into the sun. The reflection off the water made it impossible to determine if the buoys were green or red. We didn't run aground, or hit anything, but it certainly raised our awareness for closely watching our charts.