Stowaways
03 December 2017
Stowaways
Friday 12/1
My calculations were wrong...... by 50 miles! I thought we would be in Vero Beach today. We will anchor out one more night and then we have reservations for a mooring at the Vero Beach City Marina. We are up early again for a 7a.m. departure. It is sunny and 79°. The water temp is 76°. We spent the day traveling with half a dozen boats from Wally's group. We just can't shake them. The dock damage and sunken boats keep getting worse. We only saw one floating board. Hard to believe with all of the potential of floating debris. We spotted a manatee in the Haul Over canal channel. All of Wally's group left the ICW at Cocoa Beach. We continued on to a quiet anchorage that we have used before. It was 2:45 p.m. when we dropped the anchor. After dinner we sat in the cockpit and looked at the waxing moon. It was a beautiful evening.
Saturday Dec. 2
We are underway by 7 a.m. I found a dozen stink bugs from Virginia hiding inside a couple of hatches. They've been hitching a ride for 1,000 miles. I threw them off. I'm sure we'll find some more hiding somewhere. There is no boat traffic until about 10 a.m. It is Saturday and there are lots of fishing boats and jet skis. The weather is gorgeous. After lunch the boat traffic died down. I took in the scenery from the bow of the boat. Pelicans are fishing all around us and dolphins are jumping out of the water. The homes are beautiful as we approach Vero Beach. Carl spots a manatee as we enter the channel into the city marina. The marina is busy and short handed today. There are three boats waiting for the fuel dock. They tell us to pick out a mooring. Most of the mooring have two or three boats rafted together on them. We picked one near the dinghy dock, with only one boat. We rafted up to Sassy Girl and put the dinghy in the water. After checking in at the office and taking a shower we returned to the boat for an early dinner. Our neighbors are going into town for the Christmas parade. There is a boat parade later in the month. Many boats in the mooring have Christmas lights on. We don't hang outside long....the noseeums are biting!
Sunday 12/3
Although we could sleep later, I am still on our cruising schedule and I am awake before the sun came up. After breakfast we did some boat chores and then took the dinghy in to do a small load of laundry. After lunch, we left our mooring to get fuel and Sandra met us at the fuel dock with some boat parts that we will take to Davido. She is flying to Marsh Harbour on Tuesday. Carl's cousin Brenda from Ft. Pierce came to the dock to see us. While we were loading Davido's packages, we saw Jill and David from SV/ JilliQ. We met them here two years ago and then saw them in Hopetown, Abacos. They will be crossing after Christmas. We have decided to take advantage of a weather window on Wednesday. We are trying to beat the "Christmas winds". It is about 60 miles from here to Lake Worth, our staging area for crossing to the Bahamas. We will anchor out in Hobe Sound Monday night. Tuesday we will anchor at Lake Worth. Our "plan" (or intentions, as I'm learning to say) is to leave at 2 a.m. Wednesday morning out of Lake Worth Inlet. If all goes well, we should be in the West End, Grand Bahama Island around noon.