[Hilde’s log, January 13, 2008, posted 1-15-08 from the public library at Vero Beach, FL]
I have to date this log, because goodness knows when I will get to post it. I was lying in bed, minding my own business (sleeping) about 1 a.m. last Sunday when I heard muffled shrieks and curses from the main cabin. David often gets up really early and putters on the computer, so I thought nothing of his being up, but the distress seemed all out of proportion to the circumstance. “What is it?” I mumbled, trying to readjust and go back to sleep. “Our Verizon bill!” he spat, “It’s $760!!” “WHAT?!” That got me up. It turns out that Verizon has yanked a service we have used for years, connecting to the net through a modem in David’s phone. The calls were billed as regular minutes, meaning we could surf the net, check email, etc. whenever our plan gave us free minutes (after 9 and on weekends) and being on line cost nothing. Provided we could get a cell phone connection, we could access the net. Verizon decided to close that loophole some time ago, and for a number of years you haven’t been able to get a phone with a modem. No problem for us – David just kept his original phone. But heaven forbid those few of us with antiquated phones should have access without paying through the nose – Verizon has discontinued net access through a modem, closing that loophole with a bang and leaving lots of folks with humongous phone bills. Fortunately, we were able to get the excess charges taken off the bill, but we are without access to the net unless we stumble across free wi-fi…which we will have done if this gets posted.
We’ve been in Vero Beach for about a week, arriving on the tail end of a cold front and just in time for 82 and sunny. It’s just as nice as we’ve heard, with reasonable rates for mooring balls, a friendly and clean marina, free city bus service, good car rental rates – everything you need when you’re a cruiser. It’s a beautiful anchorage, basically a very large creek lined with mangrove bushes, with the ICW at one end and several small mangrove islands at the other. There’s lots of wildlife to admire, mostly a large assortment of birds. We’ve seen dolphins fishing along the banks, and one acquaintance says she saw sea otters at the island end of the creek. Pelicans regularly fish around us and we had a close up view of a pelican’s lunch about 50 feet from the boat. In case you are wondering, they swallow the fish whole, alive, and wriggling, and their necks ripple for sometime after the unfortunate dinner is swallowed. In fact, the dinner fought its way right back up and partly into the pelican’s beak before being swallowed again with a big gulp of water. Eeew. Right next to us, on shore, is a “free play” dog park that is popular with locals and cruisers alike, where dogs can romp off leash and plunge into the water after balls, sticks, and each other. There is a lot to see from the cockpit while sunning if you can tear yourself away from your book (
Eleanor of Aquitaine,
Hotel Pastis, and
The Widows’ Adventures so far). Venturing on shore, there are pretty, unpretentious houses and luxuriant tropical landscaping in walking distance of the marina. All the upscale houses, and there are zillions of those, require a car. The Atlantic Beach is about a mile away, available by bus or on foot. As a result of all these amenities and the great weather (most of the time), Vero is an extremely popular anchorage, and lots of people spend the winter. It’s so easy to stay here, its nickname is “Velcro Beach.” It does have its downside – the mangroves are full of “no see ums” (flying chiggers) and I am poxed with bites. David, blast him, hasn’t been bitten once.
On the way down from St. Augustine we stopped in Fort Matanzas, Daytona Beach, Titusville and Coco. Fort Matanzas was a quick hop from St. Augustine, an open and sloshing anchorage thanks to the fishing boats and touristy boats headed for a look at the fort. For some reason we were just whacked by that short trip. There was a lot of traffic on the ICW, which makes it about as much fun to travel as a main highway. The anchorage was too open for my taste and we weren’t sure of our holding, and then of course the sloshing we took from each power boat that went by made the afternoon uncomfortable. Daytona Beach was better – good holding and very close to a public park. We pulled in at dusk and admired the view across the water, which was lined with city lights. Unfortunately the anchorage was also very close to a sewage treatment plant, so pulling up the anchor was no fun.
The trip to Titusville was better – we popped out into Mosquito Bay from the canal and got away from the endless fancy homes that crowd the banks along the canal. In some places the waterway is a solid Parade of Homes show, which bores me silly, especially as there are no people outside on those fabulously expensive lawns and porches. Mosquito Bay is shallow and spreads out into an enormous expanse of water full of islands. The ICW canal is a narrow dredge, deepening the Bay from its natural one to five foot depth down to ten and eleven feet. The Bay is a popular fishing area and there are several fishing camps on the shores leading up to the entrance of the Bay. Numerous small boats were anchored in the shallow water with people bent intently over their rods. Just before Titusville we hooked a sharp right from the Bay into a narrow artificial canal and found ourselves sailing between two banks of fisherfolk, lined up with their pickups, picnic supplies, and fishing gear.
We anchored off Titusville for one night and then went into the marina to plug in the heater as a cold front arrived and dropped the night time temperatures into the 30s.
Raven was boxed in by huge trawlers to each side and in front, a garage of big boats that kept the wind from tossing us until it clocked around to the stern. Once that happened, we bounced and jounced and slopped with the rest of them. While there, we met the fine folks on a neighboring trawler,
Second Chance, who have been to the Bahamas numerous times, and we spent two pleasant days in their company, enjoying their stories and their two friendly and mischievous Portuguese water dogs. They generously let us share the car they had rented, so we were able to make a Wal-Mart run. We were so grateful – thank you, Chris and Vivian! The only grocery store within walking distance of the marina was quite small and quite vile, even for people desperately in need of bread. Our trips to Wal-Mart let us see some of the town, as well. Titusville seems to be waiting for a renaissance or to be swallowed by Daytona Beach. It just looked a bit tired and shopworn. Finally, before we had a chance to completely lose our minds from cabin fever and cold, the winds died down, the temperature crept back up, and we headed for Coco.
Coco's pretty anchorage butts up against a lovely oldish downtown full of small shops. We walked to the bank, found an ice cream parlor, and bumped into our friend Matt from
Worth W8N4 in the hardware store. When we walked over to their slip in the marina later in the day, they told tales of their experience with the stiff winds we had weathered in Titusville. The wind blew right up their stern the whole time, with no protection to speak of, and they spent the bad weather slapping up and down about three feet, the boat’s stern spanking the water and threatening to strike the pilings on either side. The “breakwater” behind the transient slips consists of a split rail fence, wholly inadequate to break any of the water or wind rushing against the boats. Not only that, they had company on board at the time!
From Coco it was a long day’s motoring to Vero Beach. A few rain showers found us, but most of them circled the water. The sun shone sporadically, sunlight piercing sheets of gray water falling from patchy black clouds on the horizon. At Vero we rafted up with another boat for the first time. Thankfully our new neighbors were home and they came out on deck and caught our bow and stern lines, securing them to their own cleats. Once rafted, two or three boats just drift together as one. It’s fun having neighbors so close. We found out David is from Dickinson, Texas and Becky is from Jacksonville, Florida. They have a little Pomeranian, Ginger, who negotiated the entire length of their boat fearlessly, stepping daintily from cabin roof to deck before curling up for a nap in the cockpit. She and Schnitzel exchanged obligatory growls and then settled down to the occasional bark. David and Becky buy repossessed boats, fix them up, and sell them, so their boat
YoGo was new to them. They move two or three times a year onto another boat and make enough of a profit to maintain their cruising life. They used to run a campground in Mississippi, and had lots of tales to tell of good tenants, crazy tenants, and Hurricane Katrina. They continued their journey after about three days and we’ve surely missed them.
David and I also had the chance to work a power boat show in Stuart Beach for a couple of days. Our friends on
Tarwathie, Dick and Libby, told us about the opportunity. We drove down to Stuart with them and another couple, Stefan and Laurie, having no idea what to expect. Everyone was friendly and pleasant and not at all dismayed at our lack of experience. We were given mustard colored t-shirts, name tags, and grunt jobs. I opened and closed an access gate and David directed traffic in a parking lot. I worked 9 hours and David worked about 7. Then he went back the next day and worked another 9 ½ hours doing the same thing. My job was stolen by Boy Scouts, so I stayed home and read and thanked God I wasn’t opening and closing a gate. It was fun and it will pay for our mooring here in Vero, but I’m glad I don’t do it every day. Lots of cruisers work the boat shows to help fatten the kitty, but boy, is it hard work. David and I were both wrecked by the end of the first day. I have no idea how he managed to do it again the next day. We had to get up at 5:30 a.m. to dress and take Schnitzel to shore, take her back to the boat, and turn around and get back to the dock by 7, so we could drive for an hour to get to the show by 8:30, then work 9 hours, then drive back, then dinghy back to the boat, get the dog, back to the shore, back to the boat, eat something and DIE.
For the rest of our stay, we’ll be doing boat jobs and errands and enjoying the warmth. David has already rebuilt the head (I’ll let him tell that tale) and I think that was the worst chore on the list, so the rest should be relatively stress free.
