Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="bilbo" data-source="post: 404179" data-attributes="member: 6965">Our last morning was mostly spent lounging in the hammock and packing up.  The wind was back to normal, if not a little weak, so sailing felt less like trying to meet Jesus.  I had to jury rig the piece that attaches the boom to the mast.  The casting broke the day before, even with the sail reefed.  Around noon, we bid farewell to our temporary island home and explored the area a bit, checking out some of the other islands.  We left SL13 in the care of this little heron:[ATTACH=full]65478[/ATTACH]We sailed North and checked out SL7.  It had a nice beach, but was occupied by a kayaker so we didn't stick around.[ATTACH=full]65479[/ATTACH]SL8 was super nice.  It had a huge area for camping, a nice big beach, and this dock/picnic table on the East side.  Minutes after we landed, two other boats showed up and started unloading stuff so we bounced.[ATTACH=full]65480[/ATTACH]Last, we stopped by SL9.  It was pretty nice too, small and cozy, but the beach area was full of rocks so we couldn't beach the boat.  It had a treehouse platform built on it.  It would be a great site for a canoe or kayak that you could pull all the way up on the beach.  The rocks would damage any boat being moved around at all by the waves.  [ATTACH=full]65481[/ATTACH]After leaving SL9 we started making our way back to the truck to go home.  Accessing the islands from where we launched requires going through or under the North Ft Pierce bridge.  I'm too tall to go under the bridge by about 4 feet so they have to open it for me, which they do on request on the hour and half-hour.  Loitering around in a small sailboat trying to stay near a bridge while 60+ foot offshore boats fly by is not much fun, so we sailed a meandering path to put us there about on time.  A half-mile or so North of the bridge is UltimEmotion2, an 80 foot racing trimaran sailboat that dismasted a couple years ago.  Apparently it was towed here and is awaiting its fate, be it repair or demo.  [ATTACH=full]65482[/ATTACH]The mast failure ripped the aft frame holding the aka apart.  They jury rigged it with timber for the tow here I suppose.  I was reading in an article that the mast is 102 feet high.  The drawbridge South of this that the boat would need to pass through to get to the Atlantic is being replaced with a fixed span with around 85 foot clearance, so if it's not repaired by then it may need to be moved again or demoed.  I guess the price tag for the boat was north of $2MM new.[ATTACH=full]65483[/ATTACH]As I was coming around to look at the bow of the broken boat the bridge tender called on the radio for me to approach, so I didn't get a photo of the bow.  I didn't get a great photo of the bridge, but was able to pull these from the Gopro video Sam took:[ATTACH=full]65485[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]65489[/ATTACH]Another half mile and around a corner had us back to the truck.  A few comments: One thing I am having to adapt to since moving down here is that nobody seems to respect others space.  It's not that I believe our camping there was some sort of claim of ownership but I couldn't believe people just rolling in with their boats and setting up shop in our lap.  And they've all got their sound systems going so it's Merle Haggard, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mariachi, and Gangsta Rap all at once!  We were lying in our hammocks the first night and I heard a noise.  Some lady was just wandering around our campsite looking at our stuff; it was weird to me but didn't seem to bother her one bit even when she noticed we saw her.  But I've found it's kind of normal here.  It's probably related to the population density. This was sort of a test run for another trip I'm planning to the Ten Thousand Islands on the Gulf side at some point.  I learned a few things on how to load the boat and what I need/don't need to bring.  From what I've found so far that area is a bit quieter but we'll see.</blockquote>

Verification: What is the most common fish caught on this site?

Reply to thread

Recent Posts

Friends of NDA