Florida’s strawberry season has peaked and ebbed, so that must mean... it’s April. Already. Yikes! What happened to winter? Well, for Tom it was a tough grind of working in the state park, but he accomplished a lot. He replaced some soffits, fascia board and old wood in the employee housing, rewired lights in the mechanic’s garage, and installed an electrical system, to name a few improvements. And, I must not forget to mention that obstinate sliding door at the ranger station, the one that now opens and closes with one finger.

As for me, well, I can’t brag, but I kept the workingman well fed and managed to do a couple of maintenance chores, like refinishing some teak and cleaning Pura Vida’s bottom a time or two.

There are worse places to spend a winter than Fort Pierce. The city marina is plopped right in the middle of all the goings-on, so we never had to drive if we wanted to go downtown, to the Saturday morning farmers' market, Friday Fest, the Manatee  Center, the Tiki Bar, Christmas parade, bike night, or any of dozens of other activities. We even got visitors. In February Fran and Dick escaped a week of Minnesota winter for Florida sunshine and while they were here  they drove us down to Loxahatchee to see Lion Country Safari. Then in March, friends Larry and Mary drove over from Gulfport to help us celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and down a few at the Tiki Bar. 

One day, around the time of March's full moon when the tide was at its lowest, I went to get off the boat and had to step one foot up onto a wooden support post and then boost myself up to reach the dock. The water was so low, when I stood on the dock I was at eye level with Pura Vida's bridge. That seemed like a good time to hand down the bicycles, when they were within such easy reach. The poor old things had been folded up and stored topside under a blue plastic tarp for nearly a year without being used, and when the tarp was removed they appeared comatose. My bike was revived with copious amounts of WD-40, new air pumped into its flabby tires, and a few pedals around town, but Tom’s bike was a different story. The rear wheel sprocket was completely worn out, the cable for the gear selector was frozen, and he thought it was ready for that great junkyard in the sky. But, before its final demise, he had an idea: remove the gear selector altogether and turn it into a 1-speed bike. It worked! So we still have our port cruisers.

By the last week in March, the reality of departure was fast approaching and we started getting serious about preparations. Last November we had all the time in the world to fix everything - the tachometer, oil gauge and temperature gauges had all been giving erratic readings. Now it was time to act. Tom thought the ground connections were dirty and he set about disconnecting, cleaning, and reconnecting everything. He made progress but the 12-volt gauge was stubborn and still refused to work. He checked the voltage, it was OK. The voltage at the alternator was OK too, so maybe the gauge was bad. "Why is that bilge pump running so much?" he said, amid the tangle of red, green, yellow and black wires. A visual inspection of the house batteries didn't bring good news. They'd run dry, so Tom filled their waterless little cells and hooked them up to the battery charger. It was going to be one of those days. 

That's when I turned the faucet to wash dishes and nothing happened - didn't even sputter. Tom's frown grew deeper and he was back on his knees, peering down into the hatch for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. The water supply hose had popped loose from the water heater and sprayed water from the tank into the bilge. No wonder the pump had been running so much! That was a relatively easy problem to fix. 

He fixed the wiring for the courtesy lights, hooked up an emergency hand-operated bilge pump, installed a new compass and a new piece of teak to hold it on the instrument shelf, and about a dozen other little projects on his "time off." We were ready. Tom had even planned the easiest way to exit our slip at the end of "I" Dock next to a concrete wall, not that easy to get into and out of. He'd step across our neighbor's boat to tie a spring line to their port side piling 15 feet away, drop our dock lines, push Pura Vida 2/3 of the way out of our slip, and then pull on the spring line to bring the bow around until she was pointing out the fairway. 

Monday, April 14: Ah, the roar of the engine, the smell of diesel fumes! We were back in the saddle and the exit plan worked like a charm. First stop, the fuel dock, about 30 seconds away. When we eased up to it, I was supposed to loop a bow line over a piling but I'd forgotten my lessons in line-looping and I missed. Lucky for us, a kind soul on his boat noticed and came out to grab a stern line before we drifted too far out. But that wasn't the only issue. When Tom poked the nozzle in the hole and started pumping, diesel backed up out of the fill tube. He said the vent ports were plugged, but by squeezing the handle just a hair, it came out slow enough to fill the tanks. Another entry on his mental list of 'things to fix.' 

We were finally on our way to Lake Okeechobee. The St. Lucie Canal is a no-brainer, just point and shoot, and much of it runs parallel to the highway. It feels odd to look to one side and see a Mac truck barreling down the road as we're making way alongside at 6 knots. Sometimes the drivers honk and wave. The Sabal Palm is the official state tree of Florida. They prevail on the banks, on this day silhouetted in the late afternoon sunlight like stands of giant puffballs. Those closest to the water lean at varying angles, up to 90 degrees. A few have given up the fight, their heads at water's edge, sandy root balls exposed. 

Light was beginning to fade by the time we got to the Port Mayaca Lock, our sleeping spot for the night. Just outside the lock they've stationed six dolphins in succession, strung out at varying distances from 30 to 60 feet apart. Each dolphin consists of a center piling surrounded by a circle of six slightly shorter creosote-soaked pilings pulled together near the top by five strands of industrial strength wire, stretched tight, to pull the tops in toward the center support. Five more strands of wire are wound around a foot or so lower. Just under the wires are two heavy-duty cleats jutting out from each dolphin, one on each side, fore and aft, so that barges (or little squirts like us) can secure themselves until the lock opens. We set out to do just that. As Tom slowly approached one of the cleats, I leaned over the bow rail as far as I could in the strong north wind with a looped line on the end of a fully extended pole. Once that line was attached, he tied another one to it for a longer reach - we had 60 feet to cover. Now we were hooked only at the bow and swayed back and forth like a windshield wiper. When we swung close enough to the other pole, Tom stretched his pole out and looped a stern line over that cleat. The fierce wind immediately pulled us the other way but he held onto that line with bulldog determination. It was not getting away! It didn't, but when it was all over, his hands were shaking. All I had was a swollen purple ankle from banging it into the forward cleat when I did my stint up front. Some stops are so much fun!