We loved this section but we didn’t stay long because we had a schedule (the worst thing you on the Loop) but we will stay longer next time. We had a beautiful ride filled with great scenery and fast boats.
Pecks Lake is a beautiful anchorage. It’s really a local treasure. Once anchored, take the dink to the shore, then take a short walk through sea grapes and dunes to a private gulf beach. The water was clear, there were shells, and we both swam in the waves!
We arrived at Fort Pierce Safe Harbor Marina for three days. Back in Alabama (Roll Tide!) we won a gift certificate from the Shearwater boat yard in Fort Pierce, so we had new house batteries installed, the old ones were frustrating and have been since the rivers. Every time we anchored out, after a single nights use the batts would be below 60 to 50 % charged. We have been searching for the root cause since Joe Wheeler state park on the Tennessee river. We had two navy electrical engineers look at our system (fellow loopers) and no answers. Now we have upgraded to larger sized batts (from group 27 to group 31). Even though Brian helped the shop mechanic on the install, it still took three hours. Happy to say that after a week and a few nights on the hook, the system is working good with fully charged batts after a night of discharge.
While I hefted those 75 lbs suckers around, Ellen did laundry and hung out by the pool. We had not seen a laundromat in a while and this was nice one. The marina is pretty nice, could have stayed longer but … schedule. We walked to Publix carrying groceries back in backpacks and dragging a folding dolly. We Ubered to Marine Liquidators which is like a Costco of boat stuff. Then we went to the other Ft Pierce Marina to visit Kevin and Marley on TIKA (Kevin runs the Camano Facebook group page). While we were there for docktales with Amy Marie we saw a rocket launch.
We left Titusville for a little anchorage in Melbourne off of their fishing pier. It was windy and cold so we drove from inside for part of the day. This anchorage was filled with happy marine life. The boat was circled by a mama and child manatee! There were dolphins that seemed to be locals we caught them jumping the next day as we were leaving. When bringing the anchor up we saw why the manatees were there, there was thick, romaine lettuce style sea grass on the anchor chain, looked appetizing even to me. We saw another launch even bigger as we were closer to the space center.
