Day 10 - Vero Beach

Lyn and I got up at 07:00 yesterday and ate a quick breakfast so that we could leave our emergency duck-in marina and join Ringle on a mooring at Vero Beach City Marina. We backed out of the slip at a little after 08:00 and headed down the ICW to Vero Beach City Marina, arriving at mooring #4 in the south mooring field by 09:00. The crew of Ringle were relaxing in the cockpit enjoying their coffee and morning news reports. They had outfitted Ringle with fenders and lines already prepared to raft with Kite, so it was an easy job to tie up alongside.

Once securely moored, I set out inflating our dinghy on the foredeck and then launching it, with assistance from the Admiral working the spare halyard. We typically tie the dinghy alongside the port side of Kite because the outboard motor lift is on her port quarter. But we had tied up with our port side against Ringle’s starboard side, so there was no room for the dinghy there. We improvised, tying the dinghy across Kite’s stern, with the aft end of the dinghy on the port side of Kite. That got the dinghy close enough to the motor lift that we could manage lowering it down to the dinghy without much trouble. In a short time we had the dinghy set up and ready to ferry ourselves over to the dinghy dock.

Vince and I had agreed that we would launch only Kite’s dinghy and travel together when we all wished to go ashore. We motored over to the dinghy dock, past replicas of the Niña and Pinta. Surprisingly the dinghy dock was up a small creek north of all the docks. Then we waited for the bus to take us to the beach.  After waiting 20 minutes past the scheduled departure time, and still seeing no bus, we took the next bus that arrived and went into town for lunch instead of going to the beach. We all enjoyed a delicious lunch at Kelley’s Irish Pub and Deli, watching the Masters Golf Tournament on the TVs they had stationed throughout. We then went to the bus stop across the street to catch the returning bus, going to the beach. But alas, our luck with buses was not good this day, and after waiting 30 minutes past the scheduled arrival time we called Uber and were quickly transported exactly where we wanted to go.

Nina and Pinta replicas

Although the wind was very strong and the temperature was hot, nearly 90°, the day was beautiful with sunny blue skies and few clouds, and the sea seemed to match the sky with beautiful light blue water punctuated by white foam where the waves were breaking. It looked so inviting that we walked down to the water’s edge and let the waves run up over our feet. The seawater was chilly but not cold, I would guess the temperature to be in the mid-seventies. After a short while in the surf, we climbed the stairs back up to the boardwalk, found a faucet to rinse the sand from our feet and resumed our walk along A1A, peering into the many shops along the way. A few blocks away, we walked into Kilwins, a well-known ice cream and chocolate shop, and treated ourselves to delicious ice cream cones. We ate them on the outside patio, and had to hurry to keep them from melting in the heat.

Peter, Lyn and Eveline at Vero Beach

After Uber-ing back to the marina, we thought we would try to dinghy over to the Riverside Café on the south side of the bridge. It is actually closer to our mooring than the dinghy dock. It was a wet ride in the wind driven waves, and when we arrived they were not very welcoming, so we returned to our boats. It was the cocktail hour, so we shared some wine and then got ready for dinner at Ocean Grille, located right on the beach. We took the dinghy back to the dinghy dock, called Uber and were dropped off right in front of Ocean Grille around 18:00. There was a 30 minute wait for a table, but no wait at the bar, so we went to the bar and ordered drinks and eventually ordered a meal there too. The drinks were good, the conversation was interesting and entertaining, and the dinner was very good too.

The sun had been down for an hour when we left the Ocean Grille and took Uber back to the marina. I had forgotten to bring a flashlight for the dinghy ride back to our boats, but Eveline just happened to have her headlamp in her purse, so she provided the light for our return dinghy ride.

It was a warm evening, and still above 80° when we arrived at Kite. I rigged Kite’s wind scoop to funnel the breeze directly over our bed in the V-berth. It helped, but I still find it hard to sleep when the temperature is above 75°, which it was all night.

This morning we decided we would take it easy and stay aboard Kite. It turned out that there was little other choice. Right after breakfast we checked the weather and learned that strong thunderstorms were headed our way, and we were under a tornado watch! So we stowed all loose items below decks, removed the motor from the dinghy and stowed it aboard Kite, and battened down all the hatches just as the rain started. I had just started the generator to recharge the battery and decided that it would be ok in the storm if I left it running. The rain was followed by lightning and thunder, and soon the rain started coming down in buckets. It continued raining and thundering for the next two hours, but there was very little wind where we were anchored, which was fine with me.

Rain pouring down

Our storm. We're blue dot.

When the rain finally stopped at 12:30, we hoisted up the bow of the dinghy to dump about 30 gallons of rainwater that had accumulated from the storm. Then we set out drying off everything so that we could enjoy the breezes and dryer air behind the storm. The sun came out and the temperature soared again into the upper 80°s, but felt cooler with the breeze. Tonight the weather forecast calls for a low of 55°, so I plan to use the wind scoop until the boat has cooled below 75° and then just leave the ports open for the rest of the night.