Stuart/flea market/water temps

Posted By: Bob s-v Watermark - Mac26S - Ottawa River - ON
Date: 3/7/08 6:57a.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: Stuart (pic) (MrBill_26D)

MRBILL, I hear the Stuart anchor field will close around April 1st. It is a municipal facility and the city signed a lease with a private company to redevelop the shore. I'm told there with be a large full service marina, as well as a new anchoring field. With regard to roll, wake and so on, we were lucky and got a mooring ball fairly close to the clubhouse. We were farther away from the traffic lane going under the Roosevelt Bridge and so had few problems, there is no wave action here otherwise. We did get the odd rock and roll but nothing to complain about, always very quiet at night. The boats on the far mooring balls were subjected to a lot more wake action than we were. Many of these boats on the outer balls are being stored there, no one is on board, they have no sails on them, just a cheap place to park a boat at $240 per month for a ball. There were no bugs (even when we were in the Keys). We discovered that with the main hatch open you can see the night sky from the aft berth. A great way to drift off to sleep. In Stuart we would often see a large group of dolphin feed on the incoming tide around the bridge. We even had a young one surface right beside the cockpit, I could have reached out and touched him if I had known it was going to happen. I was at the flea market yesterday. Lots of great buys, I picked up a bunch of small stuff. It was a great way to spend the day. I now have the boat on the trailer ready to head out and so will not be getting out on the water again. Chris, the Keys were unusually warm on this trip, and the water very clear. Even the locals were complaining about the heat. It is not as warm down there right now, we just hit it when it peaked. Bob