Cheryl's Notes:

We left Vero Beach this morning with a bang, but I will let John tell you about that one. Sundays on the morning are very busy. There was a lot of boat traffic today, mostly fishing and power boats. You forget it is December when you see women in bikinis flying past in go fast boats. We went past a youth sailing club out racing their Optimist dinghies. There must have been about fifty kids on both sides of the waterway whipping around the race markers. We had a constant 20 knots of wind blowing most of the day, so they were really flying.

We have seen a lot of derelict boats along the way, and for the first time today, we saw a small sailboat that was drifting loose. I don't know if it came loose from a marina somewhere, or chafed through an anchor rode. The county sheriff was calling Towboat US to come and secure it.

The wind seems to be laying down a little tonight, hopefully we can catch this weather window in the next two days.

John's Notes:

I haven't been all that impressed with Vero Beach but we did have some excitement Friday night. Cheryl and I were below finishing dinner or doing dishes when we noticed that something with a lot of light went by the boat. We were up on deck in a flash and discovered that Friday night was the lighted boat parade. I think we saw some notice about it but just forgot. Anyway, the boats were parading by the marina and, we are guessing this, they were instructed to take a certain course. This course led them to cross right over our bow between us and the boats on the next mooring ball. Friday night it was really windy. It must have been blowing 20kts. Anyway, we are up on deck watching the events and all of a sudden one of the boats, about a 32' open sport fisher cuts so close in front of us that one of his outriggers catches the forestay of our neighbor Donnie's boat. Just a glancing blow but it got our and Donnie's attention. Now the guy driving the sport fisher panics and totally looses control of the boat. At this point, we have a couple of boat hooks at the ready in case the guy get any closer to our boat. He avoids us but almost t-bones the boat in front of us. It only lasted a couple of minutes but was pretty tense. The parade was patrolled by local authorities but I'm guessing that it would have been hard to explain to someone's insurance company had an actual collision occurred. It's not all fun and games out here folks. This is serious business. We have yet, however, to incur a drive by shooting. Check your local news tonight for updates in your area.

My day didn't start out as I had planned. Sure, we were up early to meet Arnie and Bev from Scandia at the fuel dock at 0700. We both needed water and to pay our final marina bills. It was still windy this morning. It blew 20+kts all night last night. Donnie, from Freedom helped us disengage from the mooring ball and the boat that we were rafted up with. The mooring balls are pretty close together so you have to be careful when you are maneuvering Everything is dead ahead slow. Our particular mooring ball was very close to not only other mooring balls filled with boats but also a channel marker. As I maneuvered the boat away from the boat we were rafted to, I neglected to take into effect the strong current pushing the boat sideways. Sure enough, within seconds, not being under full power, I was up against the channel marker. What caused the problem was that I didn't just let the boat rotate around the piling as I should have. Instead I tried to steer around it and caught the bow of the dingy on the piling. Didn't damage the dingy but I sure did a number on my boarding ladder. You have to know the boat to understand but it all has to do with the way that I have the dingy secured to the davit system and the stern rail. To say that I was pissed with myself is an understatement. My father would not be impressed with the boat handling skills that I exhibited today.
In all fairness though, I have seen him ring the bell on many a dock when I was a kid. My sister will know what I mean. Anyway, I corrected the slightly twisted boarding ladder this afternoon when I put a line around the stern ladder and ran it to a primary winch and took up the line till it was again more or less straight. Improvise, always improvise.

We are again at anchor and I'm a much happier camper.