The end of East Coast boating draws near

Over Thanksgiving in Napa, we got the notice:  Tumbleweed is going to Victoria on UHL Frontier, not Bruce like they first told us.  And UHL Frontier was scheduled to arrive on December 7, which is way earlier than Bruce could’ve gotten there since she’s still in Europe.  Grrrr.  Applying Bayesian logic we were pretty confident that we’d rush back to Fort Pierce from Scottsdale only to have the date moved out again, but missing the boat would cost a large pile of money.  Which means on Friday we rushed back to Fort Pierce.

Because we only planned to be in Florida for a few days—and had no plans to attend any fancy dinner parties on any of those few days—we intentionally left our dress clothes at home.  And by that we mean we didn’t bring jeans or shirts that don’t start with t.  But then as we walked around town we happened by the Sunrise Theatre.*

We looked in.  The lights were on.  People who didn’t leave their finery at home were walking around in that finery.  Hey, it’s The Nutcracker!  Show is at 7, and they have tickets left!  One of us is a sucker for The Nutcracker, and the other one of us is a sucker who forgot that ballet mostly involves a bunch of people silently prancing around on their toes with their arms and wrists flapping awkwardly.  So we went, confident in the knowledge that any well-attired snoot who peered down his or her nose at those of us dressed for pickleball would never see us again.

We shouldn’t have bothered worrying at all.  Every member of the audience but us was related to a performer and thus was too fixated on little Susie or whoever to pay attention to our state of underdressedness.**  But Clara got the nutcracker of every young girl’s dreams and there was way less rap music than that time we scored last-minute Hamilton tickets in Chicago with Second Wave, so it all worked out.  All in all, Fort Pierce was a great success.***

Saturday morning instead of watching football we headed south to Stuart.  Lots of stuff to see along the way, but sadly we took the camera back to Arizona and iPhones suck for any distant detail.  Here’s a photo of one of three little regattas we passed, however, just to show something that would’ve been much cooler and crisper with a zoom lens.

No matter how far we travel, there’s always a new hazard to avoid.   Several clowns on boards tried to ram us in the middle of the channel but we foiled them.

After we tied up, the Tiki Taxi full of revelers cruised close enough to the dock for us to hear shrieking, which also put it in phone camera range.

Remember No Drama in Quebec with the Arizona flag?  And the two other Arizona boats at Jekyll Island?  Well in Stuart, we found ourselves next door to Desert Deviation.

Turns out Jason and Amber live about a mile away from us when they’re not on their boat.  Crazy.

The funny part is that we were so taken aback by the Scottsdale boat that we never paid attention to the DeFever docked on the other side of it.  Then later—about the time we were rooting for a sinkhole to open up under Mercedes-Benz Stadium and swallow Georgia and Alabama and all their fans—we got a knock, knock.  Who’s there?  Gary and Monique!  Woooo!  We last saw Star Gazer in St. Michaels.  2021.  Great to catch up, although all we have to show for it is a really horrible photo that we can’t blame on the phone.

Oh yeah.  We also took the drone home.

In an effort to time our arrival in West Palm Beach so as to avoid the treacherous cross-current that surprised us last time, we awoke this morning for a pre-dawn departure.  Fog again?  Get the fog outta here.

But we left anyway, because sometimes it really does burn off.

This poor slob also left before dawn, but ran up on something right by the sign that said “Danger.”  Dana cheerfully offered pleasantries before dutifully taking his photo.  As an aside, Dana hates taking pictures of people in distress.  She thinks it rude.  But she also hates three hours of “I can’t believe we don’t have a photo of that guy on the shoal.”

Did we mention that the ICW is shallow?

Here comes Santa Claus.

Here comes Santa Claus.

Right down Santa Claus lane.

Not only did we enjoy holiday vibes from multiple Santa Clauses, the trip was as smooth and easy as we could’ve hope for after Doug dropped and broke the auto-pilot remote about an hour into the trip.  Grrrr again.

Nearing West Palm Beach, the boats significantly increased in size.

We’re guessing there’s much booze in the blender on Margaritaville at Sea.  We looked it up.  For a few hundred dollars you can spend two nights traveling to and from Grand Bahama Island with all your parrothead friends, although the online reviews are mixed.

Then on into Palm Harbor, where this time we didn’t almost wipe out $10 million worth of Hinckleys.  Where’s Waldo?

On our walk through town, we found a 35-foot tall, seven-ton sand Christmas tree, which seems to be the cornerstone of West Palm Beach’s Christmas celebration.  

Bucking our strong preference to be in pajamas before sundown, tonight we ventured out to see what all the fuss was about.  The streets were packed with people who obviously aren’t familiar with Looper midnight.

But the traditional lighting of the sand tree was cool enough, and walking past the other sand sculptures allowed us to end this post with a nutcracker.  That’s some symmetry right there baby.

As of this moment, UHL Frontier is scheduled to arrive in Port Everglades on December 8.  Fingers crossed.

——————

*You can tell the Sunrise is a classy joint because it’s a “Theatre,” not a “Theater.”  Unless you’re in Canada, in which case even raunchy adult movies show in “theatres” because Canadians are still trying to be British.  Except the ones who live in Quebec.

**When the box office dude said there were tickets left, he failed to mention that the production was roughly on the level of All Saints Episcopal Day School’s Spring Show, only longer.  We immediately knew something was amiss when the announcer optimistically described the mostly pre-teen troupe as “pre-professional.” Bless their hearts.

***Except for the $&!#ing birds.  During our three week absence, the entirety of the Fort Pierce bird population decided our bow pulpit would make a most excellent porta potty.  And on the viscosity scale between cold tar and cured concrete, Fort Pierce bird poop falls much closer to the latter.  After what seemed like ten hours of scrubbing we got about 80% of it off before giving up.  We’ll give it another go as soon as we find someone to loan us a jackhammer.