Tuesday, January 10, 2012

3,940 miles to Fort Pierce, FL

At 5:15 p.m. today we completed our 8-day journey from Olalla to Fort Pierce! It was a long slog, and we’re happy to have it behind us.

On arrival we drove straight to Harbour Isle Marina where we’ll live for the next month so we could see it before dark. We met Sandy the marina manager, saw our assigned slip, and learned about some of the amenities, restaurants and laundromat.  Happily, we have a day off tomorrow with no commitments. Thursday we’re to meet Curtis, our boat broker, at the boat in Stuart, FL at 8:30 to confirm a few final repairs have been made, then we’ll get the keys, and a hired captain, Chris Caldwell, will drive the boat with us on board to our slip at Harbour Isle.  After that, we have a week to move all our things on board, arrange for a few more retrofits (like screens on the windows to keep bugs out) and repairs, then we begin 3 days of “boat specific” training with Captains Chris and Alyse Caldwell, a married couple who are both 100-Ton Coast Guard Captains who do training as their jobs.  More on that later.

Tonight we went to a nearby seafood restaurant, sat at an outside table on the deck overlooking the water and had good seafood and a glass of wine – a nice way to celebrate the completion of this part of the journey.  It was 78 degrees and partly cloudy on arrival.  Off to bed!

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