We spent the night at Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart. This was maybe the second fanciest Marina we have stayed at so far, and definitely the most pricey. Once again we found ourselves a bit intimidated by all the big and fancy boats, but as it turns out the Marina is within walking distance to downtown Stuart, and there is a nice waterfront walking trail that we took advantage of.

We planned a long trip for the day, so we got another early start. This time we snuck out of the super-fancy Marina at 6:30am. There is a bridge with a vertical clearance of 14 feet, so I went ahead and lowered the mast and antennas. After waiting for a train to pass on the other bridge, we eased under the Stuart bridge and headed towards the Atlantic. I went back up to the bow of the boat to re-set the mast and antennas. As I was finishing, some moron in a fishing boat flew past us creating a giant wake that  nearly threw me off the boat. Inside there was coffee spilled and other items tossed about, but we didn’t let it ruin an otherwise beautiful morning.

The Atlantic ICW is different because we are now heading north! Some parts of the waterway were pretty wide, and we were able to run the boat a bit faster than normal. This helped cut our overall travel time down to about 8 hours today.

We arrived at Melbourne Harbor Marina, which is a quiet little marina just off the ICW. They had helpful staff and good prices. I recommend it.