Feb 15-18

One of the many pelicans that hangs out here…

Once we were settled in at the marina, Andy called Don Allin, a friend from Toronto.  Don was actually the yacht broker that we had bought “On Business” through.  Don and his partner Barb, spend two months in Nettle Island, so they were relatively close to the marina.  Don had offered to take us anywhere we needed to go by car.  We imposed on him and went out to Walmart in Stuart  to reprovision.  On our way back the skies opened and the rain fell for over an hour.  That night we went for supper to a restaurant called shuckers.  The food was very good- Elaine and Andy enjoyed the seafood special,  while Don and I had BBQ ribs, and Barb had eggplant.

On Tuesday, Don had agreed to take Elaine to the airport in Miami, Andy went along for the ride, and I remained at the boat catching up on some cleaning and paperwork.  That evening Barb and Don stopped by after their dance class.

On Wednesday morning we had originally hoped to leave Nettle Island and start northward.  We began the day by calling the local Xantrex service centre to see about getting a new battery charger as ours did not seem to be working.   We were given some advice from the technician when he called back, but was told they don’t keep the chargers in stock and it would take at least 10 days to get them as they are shipped from Burnaby BC Canada.  Andy did some tinkering in the engine room as was able to get the main battery charger operational.  We still need to replace one of the digital eco charge boards for the house batteries- which is available at West Marine.  We called around to the local West Marines, but no one has them in stock.  We decided that we will order one on line and have it shipped to the West Marine in Murrell’s inlet, as that will be the nearest store, once we arrive in Myrtle Beach.

Andy needed some in-line fuses, so he called Don and was able to get to a hardware store.  We went for drinks in the Tiki hut and met a couple from Vermont, as well as the owner of the “Boomer too” boat from Hamilton ON, which is parked beside us.

Thursday morning we are moving north- but  not sure  how far we’ll get.