Last Friday, after meandering out the mangrove islands at Melbourne Beach, we decided to sail across the shallows back out to the ICW. The winds were in our favor, so we kept sailing and enjoyed an incredible SAIL for over 10 nautical miles, sailing 6 kts in NE 10 to 15 kt winds, from Melbourne Beach to the Wabasso Bridge. Bud and Jen pulled out their screecher and s/v SeaQuest easily sailed past s/v Links. Awesome day of sailing!

We arrived at the mooring field in Vero Beach and rafted on a ball with Bud and Jen in the southern field. There were only 2 other mooring balls available on Friday and by Sunday, all the balls were filled, with almost half having 2 and sometimes 3 boats rafted together. Vero Beach is a favorite stop for cruisers for many reasons – it's a great harbor, there's a bus stop right at the marina to take you to so many stores for re-provisioning, the ocean is a short distance away, and the area is lovely and tropical with banyon trees and palm trees.

It's fun talking with other cruisers in the boaters lounge or laundry room, on the bus, or in the dinghies at the dock or on our rides to and from our boats. On one of our dinghy rides, we saw s/v What If rafted to another boat near our mooring ball. We met Ed and Cathy in Fort Myers on a different boat on our last trip, so we dinghied over to talk with them and ended up getting an invitation to a potluck aboard their catamaran the next night. Cool! They have friends that live nearby, so they called and invited them to also join us. There were 9 of us, so there was an abundance of food with lots of interesting conversations. What a fun night and a great way to end our wonderful stay in Vero Beach!

Yesterday, we raised the mainsail as soon as we left the mooring field, hoping to motor sail or even sail for awhile. However, the winds were from the south east, the direction we were heading, so we ending up motor sailing all day. It was a bit bumpy at times, but not uncomfortable. There were lots of dolphins along the way, and at one time one dolphin was so close I thought I could touch it. So cool! Tim even saw a large skate jump out of the water. Very cool!

Around St Lucie, we watched kite boards and sail boarders scooting along the water. As we crossed St Lucie Inlet, the water turned a beautiful green and blue color and so clear!

We anchored in Peck Lake in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to dinghy to shore and walk along the beach at Jupiter Island, looking for sea beans in the wrack. It was a successful trip, because I found a pretty orange hamburger bean and both Jen and I found a heart shaped sea bean! Yay! We watched a beautiful sunset over our anchorage before our dinghy ride back to our boats. What a great day!!