On to Vero Beach

Saturday, November 19

The last leg, of the first phase of our trip, is the 75 mile stretch to Vero Beach, where we will hole up for a few weeks before continuing our cruise towards Miami.

Titusville marina always has manatees to watch.

Dan is hosing down the boat and manatees are drinking the fresh water runoff!

We left Titusville at 9:30 for a 37 mile run to Eau Galle or Melbourne (still undecided) to anchor for the night. This stretch of the ICW is wide and open and there is surprisingly little traffic on the waterway today.  Throw in only one lift bridge, and it should be a good day!

70 deg +20 knots of wind = wind breaker

Today's weather = shorts + slippers

Cocoa Beach.

(Dan's coworker from Mayo, Kate Taylor, is going to be in Cocoa Beach in one week.

Last year, we passed offshore while Kate was in Daytona Beach! We cannot get a break!)

We arrived in Eau Galle at 3:30 pm, with a set of dark clouds keeping pace with us, so we decided to drop anchor instead of pushing on another 3 miles to Melbourne. Besides, 6 hrs is about enough for us!  We were able to hoist the head sail today which picked up our speed .75 knot. Cool.

Great anchoring here with no tide in the Indian River. We've got a steady 5-10 knot East wind predicted all night that should keep our bow pointing nicely to shore (giving us 1000's of feet to drag before we'd be in serious trouble!).  

There's a marked wreck about 600 yds from us!

Sunday, November 20

Underway by 9:00 am, even though it was one of those Sundays where sleeping till 11:00 would be delightful!  No wind in the anchorage = a quiet boat which just induces you to sleep longer. 

It was an uneventful 37-mile passage to Vero Beach (and we consider 'uneventful' to be a good thing the older we get!).  There was a steady stream of sailboats going the same direction - and no doubt to the same destination -- so we were a little nervous about entering a crowded mooring field midst a crowded fleet.  But Vero does handle it's crowds well, and everyone peeled off in a different direction  in an orderly fashion.  We were able to get fuel and drop off our bikes before hunting for our mooring ball.

This is our 2nd trip to Vero and our first time rafting to another boat on a shared mooring.  Fortunately, Ed and Karen (s/v Passages/40'IP) were onboard and helped us with the various lines. 

They are a nice couple which is a good thing because you are definitely sharing close quarters!

Maja and Passages

Rafting makes getting together for cocktails much easier!

Vero has a very lovely marina.  No anchoring is allowed so you pick either a slip or a mooring.  Mooring is $14/day, hence the need to raft 2-3 boats to a single mooring!  A lot of people are here waiting for a window to cross to the Bahamas, and a lot of people are here for a bit longer, like us. 

We've been on the move since Nov 5th, so it feels good to put down roots here for a couple of weeks.  Dan has a number of projects he'd like to work on (no surprise there!), so we'll hang here until he's ready to move on.  Vero Beach has a free bus service that comes thru the marina and delivers you to just about any store you could want -- marine, grocery, liquor, electronics, hardware.  Plus, we an easy bike ride to the beach ... so as long as the weather holds, we'll be happy here!

Thanksgiving may be moderately disappointing as it is not quite the affair of Brunswick and nothing like St Marys.  Hearing that Ed and Connie (s/v Surprise) just arrived in Brunswick, and that Chris and Karen (s/v Synergy) are on their way from Texas, makes us once-again second guess our decision to turn south instead of north at Jacksonville!  So many neat people there to keep in touch with.... but would we still be wearing shorts?