The forecast called for no wind and extreme heat but I rarely let a bad forecast stop me from going sailing. The St. Lucie Sailing Club http://stluciesailingclub.org/ sponsored a raft up at Peck Lake, about 3 miles south of the St. Lucie Inlet on the ICW. Judy and I hosted Karen, LauraKay, Barbara and Irene on Sailfish. We met at the dock late yesterday morning, stowed food and drinks, slipped our lines, and motored out of the Harborage YC and Marina https://www.harborageyachtclub.com/ before noon. Fortunately, we had about 10 knots of wind out of the ENE so we raised sails and cut the motors. We had a delightful sail down the river to Sewall Point. Turning south we sailed under the bridge while admiring the stately waterfront homes on the peninsula with their large treed lots and meticulously landscaped lawns.
Weekends bring out a multitude of large fast motor boats and yachts vying for space in the narrow channel throwing up rolling wakes that in spite of our catamaran’s generous beam can still cause the boat to rock and roll and unsecured items to slide off the table and counters. All aboard were experienced sailors so they instinctively knew to hang on tight when warned of wakes. Still it is annoying that they seem to see how fast they can go and how close to our boat they can get.
The breeze made the mid 80’s temperature tolerable especially in the shade of the large solid cockpit roof. Still it was warm and if one spends much time in Florida you learn to hydrate. We had plenty of cold drinks onboard.
In less than an hour, we reached the ICW and motor sailed south to Peck Lake. As soon as we anchored, other members began arriving. A grill was quickly set up ashore, burgers and dogs were soon cooking. A dozen or more members had assembled. I lowered the dinghy and ferried a LauraKay, Barbara, and Irene to shore. Oops, we forgot the beer. Back to the boat to get it. Judy and Karen decided to stay aboard and enjoy the AC. Unfortunately, after an hour, it quit. Despite my limited troubleshooting attempts, I couldn’t get it to restart. A real first world problem.
Later a thin cloud cover rolled in making the increasing warmth more tolerable. In spite of that, I was sweating from my efforts to get the AC to run so I decided to swim to shore. The water wasn’t exactly cool but it was refreshing and did replace the sweat with salt water, not much of an upgrade. A dozen or more powerboats were tied to shore. The little sand beach has a narrow sandy path leading a couple of hundred yards to a long nearly deserted beach on the north end of Jupiter Island. Since it is a state park only accessible by boat, we had it nearly to ourselves. I took a dip in the calm slightly cooler Atlantic before heading back to the boat. By late afternoon, we decided we’d had enough fun and raised the hook to motor back to Stuart. The winds had died so we didn’t bother to set sail.
All agreed it was great fun; a fine day on the water, enjoying the company of friends old and new. We vowed to get together again soon. If you like or want to sail, please check out the St. Lucie Sailing Club http://stluciesailingclub.org/ . No boat or experience needed. If you have both, even better. It has over a hundred very active members offering plenty of racing, sailing, socializing and fellowship. Please come to a monthly meeting to check us out, you won’t regret it.
