Wednesday September 23rd, 2016 – Sunset Bay Marina – Ball 44
Lately I’ve become interested in trains. When we were cleaning out my Dad’s garage we came across my old train set. It was only a small 3 or 4 foot oval track with an engine that made real smoke. As I recall it made smoke from the stack when new and thereafter from time to time from other parts of the engine. This train set would have been from the late 50’s and a Lionel.
My fascination with mechanical toys ended with trains. I was not so enamoured by the race car sets. Those friggin cars kept flying off the track at their first opportunity… but the trains would go around their track in a stately and proud way. Sometimes the cat would intervene but I’m sure real full sized trains have evened the score over time.
I forgot to mention why I started about trains. There is a lot of train traffic here on the east coast of Florida. Most of it occurs at night and most of them are completely and totally friggin obsessed with their horns.
We are in a nice marina here in Stuart Florida. We are up the St. Lucie River a ways. The marina is located just after you go under a highway bridge (new Roosevelt bridge), through a train bascule bridge (brit bridge) and a highway bascule ( old Roosevelt bridge). The new Roosevelt bridge is 65 feet so we fit under. The rail bridge stays open unless there is a train then all kinds of sirens and lights start going and the bridge comes down. The Old Roosevelt bridge is closed and only opens on demand.
The bridges were a little intimidating. The three bridges are within 150 meters total. There is current and the railway bridge opening is only 30 feet wide. No terror there. Now let’s add a 100 foot blue power boat that comes into the bridge just as we were revved up to go.
The marina is Sunset Bay Marina. All kinds of nice services, its very clean and the staff is friendly. They have a shuttle service to town and the pump outs are free. They have a boat that comes around on Thursdays. Today we will explore and report.
