Rafting in Vero

When you are in Vero Beach, you should plan on having another boat or two sharing your mooring.  There are only 54 moorings in the field and hundreds of boats, so rafting in the thing to do!  You normally don't have your choice of who you will have as your neighbor, unless you request to be on with someone and then it's only a "request"  We are fortunate to be rafted to another Caliber sailboat, which is something rare as you seldom see Calibers around unless you are at a rendezvous.  Calibers are semi - custom boats made in Clearwater Florida and since the company stated in 1981, there have been only 196 produced.  It is a small company but very big on personal service and help if a problem arrises.  You always see Hunters, Catalinas, Island Packets and others since they produced in large numbers and there are many around this can be good and bad.
 So, we are currently rafted with "Round About" which is a 1996 40' with Merritt, Sandy and their little dog, Cayly aboard.  Like us, they are heading to the Bahamas. 
 Vero is one of the many places to meet people and on Tuesday night a few boats literally met each other by bumping into each other.  As we were sitting in the cockpit right at dusk we heard alot of noise and noticed three boats behind us - two facing one way and the other directly in front of the two.  We waited a few minutes and then jumped in the dingy to see if we could offer assistance.  They broke loose from the mooring!!!  We requested that they throw us a line so we could attach it to what was left of the mooring.   The whole top of the ball containing the line for the boat was missing.  Its such an unusual event because the city of Vero Beach maintains the balls on a regular basis, checking them for damage and changing the lines.  Everything settled down after this event and all the excitement turned into a restful night enjoyed by all.

Week Three

We are into our third week here at Vero Beach and constantly busy.  Got some Christmas shopping done and packages wrapped.  We even got into the holiday spirit by having our friends Sue and Ian from "Kokopelli" and Vince and Linda from "Fortnight" over for happy hour.  Ed made his famous tortellini with sausage and olive oil, which was delicious!

We invited Will and Muffin from "Antares" over for dinner before they headed out and again Ed impressed us with his skirt steak and famous "secret sauce", potato pancakes and vodka green beans. 

 On Friday evening, we were invited to happy hour on "Fortnight" since they were heading out on Saturday morning for Miami, where they will be taking a 5 day cruise on NCL.  We also got to meet Phil and Satya from "Brydyl Ankar" who are on a Catalina 42' with their 4 children, who will be going on the same cruise with Linda and Vince.

Next week is Thanksgiving and we are expecting our new crew member, Alice.  She will be arriving on Wednesday, just in time for Thanksgiving dinner at Vero Beach!  Alice will be traveling with us a we journey to the Bahamas. More on that later!

Provisions

This past week was a bit crazy with the high winds we had but the weather has changed for the better and more and more boats are coming into Vero as some others are heading south.  On Tuesday evening, we were invited for dinner aboard Antares with Will and Muffin serving a great gourmet meal complete with dessert.  Great cruisers for sure with a spice rack even Emeril would envy complete with capers! After taking the bus several times during the week and trying to carrying packages on and off, we decided to rent a car and do some major provisioning over the weekend, making it much easier carrying the cases of beer and gallons of boat oil not to mention a 5 month supply of canned foods.

We even took a ride to Fort Pierce and found the marine store that everyone at the marina was talking about.  Ed did find a few little things, but nothing really exciting and nothing at great prices.  After running so much these past two weeks, Eva decided we needed to treat ourselves to dinner at Carrabba's Italian Grill...another $90.00 --- Ed would be happy with a slice of Sam's Club pizza at $1.88 with drink included and all the grated cheese packets you can carry!

More and more

The cruisers are coming, the cruisers are coming!  Between Friday and today 14 more boats pulled into Vero Beach Marina including friends of ours on Antares, Sapphire, Mattina, Prior Ties, Party of Two and Fine Lion.  Some will be staying here for Thanksgiving, others plan on being in the Bahamas for Thanksgiving. The dinghy dock is getting full, but our dinghy from Delaware always finds a spot! The weather is nice - who can complain of 80 degrees, sunny and a bit of a breeze? Actually it is more than a breeze, its winds of around 20 knots!  

The past several days since we arrived here was very productive --- getting laundry done, oil changed, a new stern mounted cleat for tieing up the dinghy, grocery shopping, even got to the mall and Eva got a much needed haircut. With the free bus service, it is so convenient.  Ed and I have always just taken the bus to the grocery store and to Walmart, so Eva decided that we needed to explore Vero Beach.  We got on the first bus, then transferred to the second bus, taking us around the hospital and airport area, then onto a third bus which took us to "other areas" of Vero Beach, reminding us of the islands with run down shacks acting as homes and the local hangout bar with crates for seats and broken tables where the cards were being played. The sign said:  ox tails, chicken, or burger with fries for $2.99.  We passed on getto lunch.  Very interesting what you can see just riding the bus and not to mention the people that get on and off the free local transportation!  But its all an adventure - something we have never done before while noting that Vero Beach is not really the prime real estate investment area as a whole but a friendly city by all means.

Vero Beach, FL

Our final leg of the trip for a few weeks is Vero Beach, FL - known to cruisers as "Velcro Beach" mainly because everything you need or want is here!  The city provides free bus transportation right from the marina to WalMart, Home Depot, West Marine, Publix grocery store, the mall, the movies, even to the hospital and doctors offices.  So convenient! We are currently on a mooring ball alone, but in a couple of weeks, there will be more boats than mooring balls, so they will be rafted to each other.  It's nice having a neighbor once in a while! We have never been here for Thanksgiving, but have heard that it is a really great event with hundreds of people, so we will see.  While we are here we will once again clean out Makai of "stuff" we have not used for awhile.  Seems this needs to be accomplished every few months for some reason. "Stuff" has a way of building up very quickly.  Then we will start to reorganize and restock for the Bahamas.  Provisioning for 5 months is no easy task!  Eva makes list after list to make sure we have everything that we could possibly need or want while in the islands from batteries to q-tips, she has it covered! We are not cruisers who live with little or no refrigeration.  Canned meat is not on the menu here.  We do have a refrigerator/freezer big enough to store a good amount and assortment of food.  The temperature inside is as good or better then a home unit with freezer holding at about -4 degrees fahrenheit. Buying fresh meats in the Bahamas is expensive, however in most places the meat is frozen and looks like something we would throw out if we found it in a dark corner of the ice box.  Meat is not supposed to be grey in color so we stock up here in the states before we leave. We will also get all our mail sent to us here and send out Christmas cards and packages while we have the opportunity. We are planning to do some boat maintenance while here like an oil change and replacement of the valve cover gasket to stop an annoying oil leak ever since we had service at Deltaville Boat Yard. Always something to do!

Moving on

We had planned on leaving St. Augustine after a days stay, but when we woke in the morning, we were fogged in!  Anchored only yards from the Bridge of Lions, we could not see the bridge!  Even with navigation lights and radar, we decided not to attempt to "feel our way" so we stayed another day.  We were glad that we did as we got to see our friends on "Prior Ties" - Fran, Floyd and their yorkie, Bailey.  The following morning, we could see alot clearer and headed down to Daytona where we had a nice relaxing evening at anchorage. 

Then, on to Titusville.  Another great day on the water with no problems.  We pulled into the anchorage that had only 3 other cruising boats - a surprising small number.  We dinghied to a small park and had a play day with Rylee in the park.  



The most exciting day of the trip down to Florida this year was from Titusville around the Melbourne area.  There were an exceptionally large number of dolphins in the waters and it seemed like they were all in a playful mood.  They played in our wake and around the boat for over an hour!  We even got to see a manatee which glides through the water at such a slow pace.  We are currently at anchor off the ICW at Coconut Point, leaving us only 25 miles to get to Vero Beach.