February | 2023 | Sudden Inspiration

Day 17-19: February 3-5, 2023

Storms come in many forms. Upon returning from our side trip to Iowa I’d say there were two storms on the horizon. One emotional and the other the Mother Nature type.

One cool thing about the loop and traveling is you get to see people that you haven’t seen in forever. When we were back in Iowa my old friend Sarah reached out and said she saw we were near West Palm from our blog posts. It worked out that we could do dinner the night after returning. It was great fun catching up.

On the morning of February 3^rd, we knew we were on the clock for a weather window to get up the coast. The forecast showed it getting nasty in the afternoon and it was going to last for multiple days. Therefore, we decided to book a marina up by Stuart.

We did a quick dinghy trip over to Peanut Island. It was a great walk around and good to stretch the legs and get back to our morning walking.

Upon returning to the boat, we pulled anchor and decided to hit the nearby fuel barge. Fuel there was $4.99 a gallon, which is a significant savings over the nearby marinas charging $6 plus. While we didn’t need a full tank, it’s always good to get fuel cheaper when you can. Plus, the fuel barge crew were super friendly and tolerated our lively banter.

Being in close proximity to one of the inlets, we decided to go on the “outside” to the ocean instead of the intracoastal. It allowed for a quicker trip with no slow zones. Probably saved us an hour or so on the day. And the timing worked out perfectly. The wind started picking up just as we were docking and if we’d been any longer, we would have been in a full thunderstorm, which was bad. We took the shuttle over to the Atlantic side just in time to watch the hotel employees chasing umbrellas down the beach. One got airborne at least 30 feet and was gone. Since we missed beach time, we opted for the hot tub back at the marina hotel along with some beverages.

We spent the next two days riding out the thunderstorms that rolled thru. It wasn’t the typical Florida storm where it moved in and out in a short time. It was a lingering storm. At one point we walked to get lunch and came back with sopping wet shoes and pants. The rain jackets worked.

Tonia, Mayli, and I checked out the Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center. It’s a small, mostly outdoor, aquarium and activity center that has some cool animals to see. They have three resident sea turtles that are in captivity only because they can’t make it in the wild. It was cool to see them swimming around the lagoon. There are also many ocean fish in there to gander at. We were there at feeding time so got to feed string rays and watch the staff feed the game fish. It was a fun to pet the sting rays, some of which were super docile. 😉

Ok, you’ve read this whole thing and I didn’t mention anything about emotional storms. Sometimes those go behind the scenes. Since our trip to Iowa, Tonia and I have been a bit bummed out. Probably a little understandable with the overload from the last week. This is a perfect time for Jimmy Buffet’s lyric “Breathe in, breathe out, move on.”

Day 17 Trip Details:
Palm Beach Shores, US to Martin County, US
Time: 4 h 57 m (09:02 to 14:00)
Distance: 32.42 nm

Days 10-16: January 27-February 2, 2023

Sometimes trips don’t always go as planned. We started out with news that Tonia’s dad Alan was having health issues and needed to go to Mayo (Rochester) for tests. That was followed up with news that Tonia’s Uncle Gary was losing his fight with cancer. We decided we needed to travel back to be with family.

This led to the decision to put the boat in a marina for a few days and fly back to Iowa. We found a spot at the New Port Cove Marina and a flight up to Des Moines on Sunday, Jan 29. It was an early morning flight and we had to Uber it to the airport at 4am. We arrived in Iowa to the aftermath of a snowstorm and low single-digit temperatures. I had to wear two long-sleeve shirts and a sweatshirt since all our cold weather gear is nicely packed away in Seattle.

The positive side is we were able to spend a good deal of time with Tonia’s Uncle Gary on Sunday. We arrived at his place around two and spent the afternoon into the evening telling stories with Gary, Alan, and the family. Unfortunately, Gary passed away early the next day. We are very happy that we got to spend a few last hours with him and his family.

I first met Gary when Tonia brought me to a Bouska family get-together when we were still dating. Of course, I was a little worried meeting the family. However, there was a hayride to which Gary had provisioned a case a beer. It was all history from there.

We spent the remainder of the trip back traveling to Rochester to accompany Alan at his appointments for tests and a biopsy. It was a low-key trip, but we did get to stop by and see Tonia’s cousin Mark and his wife Irissa and five kids. I don’t know how they do it will all the kids running around!

The final day on the side trip was a lot of driving. We swung by New Hampton again to check in on Aunt Sue and family as we were going to miss the funeral.

The trip summary is Gary will be very missed and it is darn cold in Iowa/Minnesota. Yes, that’s where we’re from but spending time in Seattle and now Florida has made us cold adverse!