Vero Beach Again
31 March 2011 | Vero Beach, FL
Doug & Connie
The picture today is of one of the stilt houses built out in Biscayne Bay.
3/30 - Last night we heard that the first bridge out of Palm Beach was down for repairs, and as we had had enough rocking and rolling yesterday, we decided to lay low for a day. This morning at 7 AM we got a call from Mystic that the bridge was open, so we jumped up and got the anchor up and were moving in about 5 minutes. We caught the first bridge at 7:45 and we went through 7 lift bridges by 9:30! These bridges are all quite close together and operate on a time sequence that allows us to get from one to other in time to make the next opening. After that it was a pleasant run up the ICW. We arrived in Vero Beach at 4 PM and after some challenges (including running aground) we got rafted up on Mystic. Several cocktails later and a nice supper and we were ready for bed. We will spend about a week here. The high and low here today are forecast to be 85 and 70, the high and low in Hertford are 51 and 40!! Needless to say we are not in a hurry to get home.
3/29 - There were more squalls last night, but everybody held their place and all was well. This morning we waited about a half an hour before leaving to see if the winds were dying down. They were and we headed out Government Cut. The winds were opposed to the outgoing tide and this created some really big standing waves (6-8') in the cut so as soon as we cleared the sea wall we left the channel. It was still pretty roily, but we decided to continue on. We angled out from Government Cut until we hit the Gulf Stream about 3 miles out. After that we were moving right along at over 10+ knots over the ground. It was still roily for a lot of the way, but it calmed down for a while. The problem was that the winds were too light and too far behind us to keep the sails filled and steady the boat. We came in at Lake Worth Inlet (Peanut Island/West Palm Beach) and anchored just inside in the normal jumping off spot for crossings to the Bahamas.
3/28 - It was another early start but the winds were not as favorable today. As we got ready to leave the anchorage, we could see a lot of thunderstorms over central Florida and we hoped they would head east and not south. They did and we motor sailed up to Biscayne Bay and anchored just south of the Rickenbacker Parkway (the road over to Key Biscayne). About 8 PM we got hit by a squall with heavy rain and 30+ knots of wind.
3/27 - We left the mooring in Boot Key Harbor just at daylight. After getting out of the harbor and on a course to the north, we found the wind was 10 to 12 knots on the beam and we had a fabulous sail up to Rodriguez Key. We tucked in here for the night. Wow! Tonight we have TV. Amazingly enough we were not able to get any TV in Marathon.