More progress and now we are in South Florida.
08 January 2010
• Vero Beach, Florida
by Mike
After a day that started at 05h30 so I could get breakfast ready, weigh anchor and make the first bridge opening at 08h30 we are the Vero Beach Municipal Marina. This is a really nice place and we have opted to be alongside for the first day before heading out to the moorings. They must have really great weights at the bottom of the moorings since rafting is not only permitted, but it is expected. The town really gets it and by it I mean that they understand that cruising tourists are like any other tourists - they bring disposable income to a greater or lesser extent into the community and in most cases do so at little infrastructure cost to the town. The municipality provides free bus service to the various regions of the town, reasonable dock rates, and nice shower and laundry facilities. The only thing missing is free wifi but I guess you can't have everything. It's little wonder that this place is usually packed. Even with the unseasonably cold weather that they have been having there are only a few empty mooring balls and most have two or three boats rafted up to them. At $11/night, the town's positive attitude and the facilities here I can understand why.
Today's trip took us back to the area of McMansions, McCondos and McAppartments all along the waterway but at least there was a lot of depth by ICW standards - in the channel we never saw less than 3 feet under the keep and in most places it was much more.
We were escorted by pods of dolphins for pretty much the whole trip which was really very, very cool - some of them stayed with us right by the cockpit riding in our quarter wave and squeaking at Peri as he woofed at them.
On a sadder note, we began to notice large fish floating belly up in the waterway and speculated on what might have caused their demise, but it wasn't until we got an internet connection and saw the local paper that we discovered that they were snook, a large game fish that simply can't survive the colder water temperatures.
And speaking of colder temperatures, I have heard several folks usung this cold snap down here as an argument that there is no global warming. According to everythingt that I have read, one of the symptoms of global warming is the disruption of existing weather patters. So we are getting marginally warmer than usual weather in the Maritimes (and that's all it takes - a difference of one or two degrees) and they are getting colder than usual weather here in Florida. Maybe it will mean the start of a citrus crop industry in Canada and a ski resort or two in Florida.
Passages and Further were held up by waiting for the other bridge and lock before they could get started on the day's journey but they made it here too making up a lot of the distance between us on the way arriving just after us in Passages case and just before dark in Further's.
I think that we'll stay here for a couple of days anyway just to check out what all the raving is about. The call it Velcro Beach because it is so hard to tear yourself away from it.
FROM BARB
As befits the senior Turney's fashion to be painfully early for EVERYTHING we were at the Christa McAuliffe bridge well before the first opening - that allowed us plenty of time to enjoy the wildlife having their breakfasts - herons, egrets, pelicans, kingfishers, osprey, turkey buzzards, ducks, dolphins, and even 3 raccoons were in evidence - wonderful sights all.
We had a long day and are grateful for the warm welcome that we received at the Vero Beach Municipal Marina. I have drawn up a list of supplies that we will go for tomorrow at the Publix via the free public transit and (yee-hah!) there is a Michael's here so I can replenish my wool stash. I have been picking the brains for folks that have been to the Bahamas before to identify items that are either unavailable or too expensive - hence the list for Publix and the health food store.
Comments