Christmas is over......

Niagara Falls in the winter

We are now back in Florida, after a short stop in Ontario to visit with Al's family.  Our cute little boat has new paint on her bottom and after a waxing and scrubbing of her hull and deck, and a stock up from the grocery store, we were ready to keep heading south.  We left Titusville early on the 15th of January continuing along the ICW, this day about 40 miles to a place called Melbourne Florida.  Its a small town and where we were, in the marina, it was stinkin hot.  We went looking for ice cream, but alas being sunday not much was open and certainly not on this sunday did we find any ice cream shops open.  We had to be content with a couple cold beer in the Ichabod pub in the marina, a fair trade off I guess.  The pelicans were very busy here, doing their faceplants catching fish by the mouthful.  Some times they landed right up next to our boat and we could hear a thud, likely from a wing as they landed. There were heron here and the odd osprey as well.

Pelican drying his wings, Melbourne, Fl.

Our next stop was Vero Beach, affectionately called Velcro Beach as lots of folks get here and don't leave.  We tied up to a mooring ball here, rafting with another sailboat.  This sailboat didn't have anybody home, so we had to carefully attach us to the boat before we could attach to the mooring ball.  We launched our little dinghy here, as that is the only way to shore,  Unfortunately, the dinghy motor wouldn't start so we just stayed on board for a cold drink before Al made us a scrumptious dinner.  The next morning Al worked on the little motor got it running, so we were able to get to shore and go exploring the area.  Thankfully, he got it started, as it would have been a long row to the dinghy dock, its way down the channel in the picture below.

The mooring field, Vero Beach

We walked to the beach, about a mile, and I was very happy to stick my toes in the sand, though the water was a wee bit chilly.  Had we spent the afternoon there, I may have gotten in.  There was a rip tide warning on, so I wouldn't have been able to actually go swimming anyway.  Finally, found an open ice cream place after being denied in Melbourne, and boy it was worth the wait.

Walking to the beach

Vero Beach

Vero Beach 

This place is full of retired folks, snowbirds, of all ages, some quite spry like the two we saw riding road bikes.  They got off their bikes where we were eating ice cream and they must have been nearing 80.  One of them even had racing tires like you see in the Olympics.  Good on them, mind, the other fellow could barely get off his bike and had to take his time to keep his balance, thought we may have to catch him.  Other folks use their walkers, or canes to get around.  The scary part is seeing some of them getting out of cars that they had been driving......hardly able to walk.

Sunset at Vero Beach, looking west

Another good feature about this town, is that all parking is free, with a two hour limit, not sure how much that is enforced, but we did see at least one parking enforcement officer... in a four wheel drive full size jeep.  Not sure why such a big mode of transportation, unless they had to chase down some senior... :)  Another great feature is the free bus service to any part of the town.  There are several routes, including one that goes right through the  marina we were at, then it goes to a major shopping area and also goes to the beach.  There are several other routes around the town, but for sailors, this one was perfect.  I can see why people get stuck here, we stayed two nights, but didn't get the Velcro feeling.

Breakfast anyone??

Last night we were at a place called Ft Pierce, in a lovely city marina.  It had been damaged by a hurricane a couple years ago and the city had invested a huge pile of cash to refurbish the whole waterfront.  The new docks aren’t going anywhere soon, massive posts with cement floating docks riding up and down the posts with the tide.

Just a little place on the water

When we got there, a small market was happening in the park beside the  marina, even had some music happening, local produce- strawberries that were fresh, a clothing stand, jewellery etc.  We found an address for a boat parts liquidator so we hiked over to it, 3 miles away, it was a hot walk, as there was no bus service we found out.  To add insult to injury, there was next to no sailboat parts, just motor boats.  I found some goggles and snorkel that I bought at least.   A nice fellow that works at the store kindly gave us a ride back to the marina as a taxi was going to be an hour more wait.  This town is another place that snow birds get stuck by the looks of it.  The tiki bars were mostly full of snowbirds, having a jolly time

Look.. it's not a coffee brown anymore

We are working our way to Ft Lauderdale, which will take a couple more days, as we are now getting into more and more bascule bridges, which aren't exactly on a perfect schedule. Twenty of them between where we are and the city. The ones that open when we radio and tell them we would like an opening are great as we can almost just motor on through without slowing down.  The scheduled ones are a pain.  Today for example, the last two bridges we needed to get through for the day are 3 and a half miles apart and their openings are on the hour and half hour.  To make the second opening we would have to travel at 6.6 knots... we only can do 6.3 knots if there are no other factors like tide, wind or current to interfere,which there always would be here, so we had to wait around for half an hour til the next opening. Some of the schedules are quite a challenge too, one will open on the hour and half hour, another every 15 minutes, another on the 20's, some don't open during rush hours......bah... humbug.  We have been seeing lots of wildlife, many dolphins, heron, ospreys nesting, pelicans, seagulls, terns.... today a dolphin swam with us for a little way.  I can never get tired of watching them or any of the other critters just doing their thing.

Honey Fitz - the presidential yacht.

We're at Loggerhead marina tonight, behind Jupiter Island, in a nice cozy basin full of boats, including this one... called Honey Fitz.  She has been the Presidential yacht for 5 different presidents.  Her current name was given to her by JFK when he owned her.  She is beautiful.  Thankfully, she isn't owned by any president now, (thinking of Trump owning her is saddening), but by a Texan gazillionaire family who's patriarch was a good friend of JFK's grandfather, who refurbished her to her old glory, she's beautiful.  She is used for special events, posh ones I'm sure.  Check out this website I found telling of her history. http://www.myhoneyfitz.com/
Darn....... I just gave Don (my brother) the answer to his quiz for today!!
Talk again when the wifi  is good...