Saturday – 21 April 2018 – VERO BEACH FL -- 3 day here
I forgot where I left OFF of the last log post… We’re been catching up on sleep, and participating in the social gatherings here at VERO…
The CROSSING: We left Great Sale Cay, at noon, to time our arrival at the florida coast for post-DAWN on Thursday. Seas were calm on the Little Bahama Bank… almost mirror like; but on the Gulf Stream crossing things got a little “bumpy”…. With “confused seas”; NOT large but confusted with waves having no particular direction…. Sort of 2 and 3 foot “haystacks that the AB, SEEKER, and “Born to Run” just PLOWED through…. The end result was the all the boats were encrusted with SALT….
(we are sort of HOPING for a hard rain… to wash the boats down…. ) yesterday (Friday) I couldn’t stand it any longer; I took a bucket of FRESH WATER out, and wiped down everything I could see or touch… caprails, top of hull, rigging (lowers), deck, coach roof, etc. But, secretly we’re still hoping for RAIN…

Anyway… We got into the US coastal waters just as planned….and entered Fort Pierce Inlet…. Although we were two –PLUS hours after low tide, the current was still in EBB…. So it was a fight to get IN. That part of our plan didn’t work all that well…. ( Although it wasn’t FULL EBB )…
We then turned north toward VERO Beach… through the N. Fort Pierce Bascule Bridge (first bridge opening in three or more months)… and proceeded to VERO.
Trying to check in with Customs and Border Patrol turned out to be more complicated that we thought. We had tried their NEW iPhone APP (called ROAM)… and crashed it three or more times while in the Bahamas… We just figured it was a flaw, or clitch, and they’d fix it before long. WELL……………….our alternate plan was to file a FLOAT PLAN same as the last few years (figuring the OLD system was still in place)…. FLOAT PLAN filled out, and submitted…. Everything copasetic!!! (after all, the new ROAM App said right on it, IT WAS A “PILOT” program….)…. Wouldn’t that indicate to everyone that the OLD systems would still WORK…. “PILOT” said to us…. TRIAL !!!
Anyway…. When we called the CBP telephone number, and cited our “float plan number”… and BR numbers (local boaters option)…. The “gentleman” (used loosely here)…. Laughed at me, and said that ‘system is no longer used, and has been dismantled’. HUMM I said. “Then why did the “dismantled” system give me a brand new float plan NUMBER?” …………… “WELL” he said, we’re not looking at that system anylonger; YOU have to use the ROAM APP…..( I told him of the three or more crashes of the APP while we were in the Islands)….
“REALLY”………….(He laughs again)….”YOU CAN’t use that system in a foreign country, you have to wait until you’re back here, and fill it out!!!”… he said.
Does that make any sense to anyone? BUT, I had filled everything out in the ROAM APP, except for the two pages where it crashed….SO I called it up on the iPHONE…. And sure enough…. The app excepted my data; I pushed SUBMIT; the APP said “DATA being reviewed by CBP officer; and several minutes later a message came IN; “Welcome to the USA”.
SO……………..It does WORK…. JUST NOT how you think it should work.
SO………..we’re BACK…. Went to happy HOUR with the cruisers on Thursday afternoon (1600 hours)… fun time…
Last night (Friday) we gathered with SEEKER, and Don and Judy Polifka at the Riverside Park music festival…. GREAT TIME !!!
Today is the Farmers Market downtown…. And a must trip to the PUBLIX (out of nearly everything)…. OH… What timing…. The first breakfast we made upon entering the USA… .we ran out of propane in the port 20# tank….. (And we used the Last of a TIN of coffee; TIMING !!!
More Later.