Sunday, February 10, 2013 – Indiantown Marina on the St. Lucie Canal:

            I swear what I am about to write is the Gospel Truth!  Boats have minds of their own – that’s number one!  Computers have a mind of their own – that’s number two!  Number three is that our boat and our computer can communicate with each other and they are in a conspiracy to drive us insane and maybe take over the world.  I know this to be a fact because, as I wrote yesterday, Bob’s computer had crashed.  We know it crashed because he would turn it on, and it would come to life for a minute, and then go completely blank – that’s a good indication that the computer has kicked the bucket, right?!  We even called the Apple store, and they did all they could to help us, but finally agreed that the computer needed some major help (such as a new one!). 

            So…after resolving that Bob’s laptop was history and all his files about our trip had disappeared into the computer afterworld and recovering from that knowledge, we decided to move on to television.  But an extremely odd occurrence occurred - the TV didn’t work.  Hmmmm…so after much head scratching and checking all the breakers and reading up on electrical engineering, we eventually discovered that somehow the reset button that works all the outlets on the port side of the boat had tripped.  So with a simple flick of the switch the TV came to life, and we got to thinking that maybe that was what was wrong with Bob’s computer.

            I know what you are thinking…the computer came on and worked for a minute before blinking out so that means we had electricity, right?  Wrong.  Well, that’s because, even though the battery in Bob’s computer is basically dead (he really has to plug it in to use it), it apparently has enough juice in it to power up the computer for a few seconds before quitting again.  But we didn’t realize it would work that way, and that’s why we thought it had crashed.

            So all’s well that ends well.  We were so relieved that we wouldn’t have to spend the next few days trying to find out how to get to a town that could either fix the problem or where we could buy a new computer, that we decided to have a glass of wine.  Bob is ecstatic that his computer does work, and he is happily surfing the internet as I type this, and he has sworn to print out all our trip itineraries and back them up on a disk.

            So the moral to this story is Thank Heaven for Television!  However, the boat and the computer are still trying to take over the world.  I know I am right about this.

            After we solved the computer debacle, we remembered we wanted to go outside and watch for alligators.  Unfortunately, the mosquitos out numbered the alligators, and we were forced to come inside and shut up the boat!  I think there should be a law that no matter what the temperature, mosquitos should not be allowed to show their little biting faces in the month of February!

            We had a good night’s sleep last night – no trains, planes, or automobiles, or rock bands at the local restaurant, to interfere with the blessed quiet of the evening at this marina.  When I got up this morning and looked outside it seemed to be very still – not a palm frond was swaying, and I was thinking maybe we should have left early this morning to cross Lake Okeechobee; but as the morning wore on the wind picked up, and after listening to the weather for the umpteenth time again, I guess we have made the right decision to spend the day here and leave tomorrow.

            So after breakfast, we had a wonderful time playing on the computers that all worked properly again, and after we figured we had wasted enough time doing that we decided to go into the town and see if we could find a grocery store.  Not that we really needed anything, but the roads looked pretty quiet and there is always something that you can buy at a grocery store.  We sort of learned our lesson about storing the bikes in the lazarett, and instead we stowed them up on the flybridge.  They really didn’t take up too much room up there, and they were sure a lot easier to get off the boat.  In addition the tires had remained nicely inflated so we were ready to ride.  The town of Indiantown is not exactly a thriving metropolis.  I think the most populated place on the main drag was the Burger King.  Most of the other stores were empty.  We never did find the grocery store.  We did seem to discover that the most popular means of transportation was a truck on super-steroids pulling a trailer with ATV’s on super-steroids.  Hopefully, I have attached a picture so you can see what I mean, but, trust me, this vehicle that I took a picture of was a “small” one.  We finally decided that we looked very much out of place in our “boat” clothes and riding our “boat” bikes, so we decided it would be prudent to high-tail it back to the boat which we did.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the last time I had ridden this folding bike my tailbone and seat bones got painfully rearranged.  These are not bikes you want to take a long ride on!

This is a small truck! And the more mud the better!

            Back on the boat, I decided it might be a good idea to wash clothes before we trekked across the Lake, so I bagged up all our duds and the laundry detergent, and headed off to the washing machine area.  I didn’t have any quarters, so I was hoping that either the person in the marina office would have change or there would be a change machine by the washers and dryers.  I was wrong on both accounts.  The lady in the marina office would not answer my knock on the door, and the nice man who was wandering around the area told me that “the office closed at 1:30, and she won’t answer the door.”  This was not the same person who greeted us yesterday and was so helpful.  I guess I should have thought about getting quarters a few marinas ago.  Some marinas have change machines near the washers and dryers but not this one.  Oh well, I guess I will wash clothes somewhere else.

            So back to the boat.  Bob says he will cook a pork tenderloin on the grill tonight, and I will bake a sweet potato to go with it.  We have to starting cooking a little earlier than we usually do to avoid the mosquitos, but that’s ok.  We are getting ready to plan our day tomorrow, and I think it should be interesting, so I’ll let you know.