Continuing south from Cocoa Beach, we anchored just under the Wabasso Bridge. Next day we continued to Stuart, which had been an optional target for a while.
We stayed a week in Stuart on a mooring ball at Sunset Bay Marina. Stuart turned out to be one of our favorite towns. While there was a very large contingent of folks who did not wear masks, everyone at the marina wore them, and several places in town seemed to demand it. I borrowed a marina bike and rode a few miles to get our propane tank filled. We ate out at a nice restaurant which was a treat, listened to live music most nights from the boat, and one day on shore. The walking was wonderful.
Our neighbor was a fella named Jeff from Colorado. He had inherited a sailboat from his dad, (or at least I got the impression that this is what had happened), and had spent the last two winters in Florida on the boat, returning to Colorado to work at Camping World selling camper stuff. Very nice guy with whom we had several good conversations between cockpit and dinghy.
As it turns out, a YouTube publisher was in the mooring field as well—Taylor from Taylor’s Adventures. She started off with Bobby on Sailing Doodles then broke off, got her own sailboat, and is doing the YouTube thing. She’s a cute girl with an adventurous spirit, and after finding this out from Jeff (who had been spending time with Taylor) I decided to watch one of her videos. Turns out she’s been making this trip without any instruments, motoring down the ICW using only her phone for navigation.
I struggle with this a bit. When I was young and reckless I did some reckless things for sure. Youth and recklessness just seem to go together. But the line between recklessness that endangers only me and recklessness that endangers other folks is not often a clear one. Do I believe that Taylor is being irresponsibly reckless? I dunno, maybe not. Watching a couple of her episodes makes it clear to me that she’s embarking on this journey without enough knowledge, background, or equipment. That’s her choice, and I actually applaud her in many ways. I love that adventurous spirit. I’m all about the notion that “we’ll figure it out as we go.” But is she crossing that line and endangering others? I’m not certain one way or the other, but it does make me uneasy.
Either way, we enjoyed our time in Stuart, and both agreed we can see why people choose to spend their winters here. After a week in early March, however, it was starting to get a bit hot, and we decided that we preferred cruising in moderate climates. How we will do in tropical climates, I wonder?
