Back "Home" Again at Stuart Yacht Builders

InSpeyered 2 has now been at Stuart Yacht Builders for almost 2 weeks, our third extended stay here since we bought the boat.  It seems Al is trying to make an older boat brand new!!  Since the last blog, we continued the 3 day trek from the Ft. Meyers area and crossed lake Okeechobee with easy waters and nothing special to report.  I didn't even take pictures since it was a repeat of what we did in mid-December.  Our days here are a mix of walks, chores, meeting up with workers and my almost daily visit to Publix since it is less than 1/2 mile away.

We were pleasantly surprised to find a brand new pathway near the boatyard to enjoy so our walk has some variety now.  You may notice that all the walking is allowing Al to slowly shed some pounds. Last week we rented a car to take some day trips.  We had a great time visiting our travel buddies on California Lady who were docked in Titusville and we were excited to see an unmanned rocket launch from Cape Canaveral at around 11pm on 3/22.  We stayed over night on their boat which is a first for us to sleep on someone else's looping boat!  

We could hear a distant rumble and then watched the big ball of flame rise up and disappear into the clouds and then it was over is just a few minutes.  But it was a once in a life time opportunity and great to be sharing it with fellow looping friends.  The next day we drove to Canaveral National Seashore and walked part of the 24 mile, undeveloped beach with a gorgeous Atlantic view.

Just footprints in the sand and lots of birds and shells! Then we had a wonderful slow drive along Black Point Wildlife Drive and saw alligators, many species of birds including a baby eagle and parent eagle, and more roseate spoonbills.  The pictures tell the story.

This alligator is sliding into the water keeping his eyes on me perhaps thinking of his next meal!  There is no picture of the eagles because we could only see them through a telescope.
Because the winter is over, generally looper boats are beginning the trek north so we also had the pleasure of meeting up with our travel buddies Sandrobber right here at Stuart while they had some repair work done.  We have also met some new friends presently doing the loop and ones that have completed a loop so are "Gold Loopers".   That makes for some nice docktail time to swap stories and advice!

We hate to see old friends sail away but we know we will meet up with Sandrobber again since we are all on the same path of travel!

Our naked boat waiting for new burgundy canvas and screening to enclose the flybridge to ward off the mosquitos and allow more viewing of the never ending sunsets!