Morning routines taken care of we dropped the lines and put-putted over to the fuel dock to take care of Banyan's ablutions and by 11:00 we were ready to unVELCRO ourselves from Vero Beach.

Standing tall, at the bow and at the helm, we felt the winds on our face, ready to tackle the open seas, adventures here we come ! Ok, not quite. It was hot, and humid. We motored out of the marina, and within minutes were under the bridge and back in the very narrow channel that be the ICW...

The scenery hadn't changed much (large expanse of shallow water with just a narrow and invisible channel to navigate), we'd almost forgotten how to drive, and we were motoring.

Within the hour, the colour of the water had changed to an absolutely brilliant shade of green. Nice. Dolphins were playing and pelicans were clumsily splashing headfirst for some lunch. Current was pushing us along and we had to slow down, as our arrival in Harbortown Marina was perfectly timed for an ETA of 13:15.

Before we knew it we were hailing the bridge for an opening, and within minutes, hailing the marina to announce our arrival. We gritted our teeth, Dave's knuckles turned white as he gripped the helm, pointed the bow North, and in we went to our pre-assigned berth. Drawing 6'4", with reported depths being 6'5", we knew we had an INCH of water to play with. An inch. Maybe less as it hasn't rained much in the last little while.

Marina staff was there to take our lines (we still feel like incompetent newbies at these partial piling type slips, le sigh), and pretty soon, Banyan was all tied up, comfy and cozy, and sitting in two feet of MUSH.



I have yet to wiki-google the definition of mush. Best I can gather is, it's ooze, and I suppose if we had to sit in anything, mush is better than hard rock n'est ce pas ?



After getting ourselves sorted out, we walked up to the Dockmasters Office, registered, and had a tour of the place. Boaters Lounge, fitness room, even a small swimming pool, boat yard... Nice !!

We've both been rather off for a while now, so we lazed over to the Harbor Cove Pub for a beer



some wings, and a view.



we're on the left there, at the end... keep going!

And there is this Island.



Where at sunset, the birds flock to.



All the birds in the area,



every kind of bird imaginable.



Crazy. They don't go to any other tree, on any other place. Just this Island.



And when we came back, at Low Water, we turned on the instruments, and Dave laughed, as he read the depth off the instruments 5'6". Nice. We'd unVELCROed ourselves, but are now stuck in MUSH. What can you do but laugh ?