St.
Augustine to Vero Beach and Jeff Arrives
Tuesday,
February 18, 2014.
We fly into Jacksonville today and are back at Riverside Marina in St.
Augustine by 4:00pm. We have dinner at
Hurricane Patty’s.
Wednesday,
February 19 through Friday, February 21, we clean, by supplies
and get the boat ready to move south.
There is a farmer’s market right next door to the marina, so we are
stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables.
We have a diver clean the bottom and change the zincs. Friday, we take a
taxi over to “the island” to meet Kyle Goodwin at his studio. Kyle does glas carving (as does Lisa), so it
was interesting to meet another artist who works in the same medium. www.goodwinglassworks.com
. If you haven’t seen Lisa’s work www.lisajeansglasscreations.com We lunched at the Gypsy Cab Company – just
down the street from Kyle’s (all the locals say it is the best in St.
Augustine) – great sandwiches! That night, we go into town with Paul Walsh (the
Dockmaster at the marina) and his friend Laurie. Nice evening, but we a back at the boat
relatively early as we plan to leave in the morning.
Rivers Edge Marine, San Sebastian
River, St. Augustine, FL 29° 53.17’ N
081° 18.32’W
Saturday,
February 22, 2014. It was foggy and rain overnight. Depart Rivers Edge Marina at 8:45am. It is slack tide and we manage to get out of
the slip and underway with minimal effort.
We travel along with a trawler “Night Heron” for a good part of the
day. We anchor in Rock House Creek, New
Smyrna, FL, at 6:30pm (dusk). There are
4 large power boats already here, 3 of them in a raft (tied together and on a
single anchor). This is not a large
anchorage, but it is well protected. Partly cloudy, wind N @ 7.
4 bridges today, all on request.
29° 03.66’N 080° 55.92’W
65SM, 52NM, MM842
Sunday,
February 23, 2014. Anchor up at
8:20am. Sunny, 75 degrees. The aft refrigeration is not working properly this
morning. We made the Coronado Beach Bridge at 8:40am. We call Pete Brocker (diver and jack of all
trades at Vero City Marina) and ask if he know a good refrigeration guy. He gives us a guy named Ty Cobb (really)
(772-388-5966). We also called the
Hedlunds and they suggested Helseth Marine Services (772-567-9552). We will be in Vero by Tuesday, so we call and
make an appointment with Ty Cobb for Wednesday.
In the meantime, we will do it the old fashioned way by putting block
ice in the unit.
We arrive at Cocoa Village Marina
at 4:45pm, just ahead of a front pushing through. See the pictures for some pretty spectacular
cloud formations. Rain and thunder
overnight.
Three bridges today – all on
request.
28° 21.47’ N 080° 43.55’W
55SM today, 44NM, MM897.
Monday,
February 24, 2014. Layover day.
Lisa’s Uncle Franny and his wife Virginia come by and take us to see
Lisa’s grandmother’s house, then shopping at Walmart and then over to see their
house. We lunch with them at Kay’s Bar-B-Que
and Steaks and then head back to the boat.
George and Bev Major come by for dinner and we walked over to Cocoa
Village and have dinner at a very nice Thai restaurant (Thai Thai). This was
their first time for Thai food and we think they enjoyed it.
Tuesday,
February 25, 2014. Hazy
sun 70 degrees, little wind. Off the
dock at 8:00am. At 1pm, Sebastian, wind
NE 10-12, foresail out. 3:30pm, sunny,
80 degrees, Vero Beach Municipal Marina on a mooring. No bridges today. 27° 39.32’N
080° 22.24’W 55SM today, 44NM MM952.
As soon as we got settled on the
mooring a couple comes by in their dingy.
The dingy has a cover on it. I
said to Lisa the only other dingy I have seen with a cover like that belongs to
Jim and Judy Foster on Tug-a-Long, who we traveled with for a time last
season. Guess what! It is Jim and Judy! They left their boat in Vero last May and it
is still here in a slip!
Wednesday,
February 26, 2014. We bring the boat into the dock for the
refrigeration technician, Ty Cobb. Yes
his ancestor was the famous baseball player.
The verdict on the aft refrigeration is that the compressor is gone
(dead short). Ty will order the new
unit. In the meantime, we will continue
to use the forward refrigerator and put ice in the aft one. Dinner tonight at
the Southern Comfort Grill. Home Cooking
and reasonable prices.
Thursday,
February 27, 2014. The new refrigeration won’t be in until
Wednesday or Thursday. There are
certainly worse places to be stuck than Vero.
We are supposed to pick up Jeff on March 8 in Fort Lauderdale, so we
call Southwest and change ho destination to West Palm Beach, closer to
Veru. Dinner tonight with Stan and Judy
Hedlund at the Disney Beach Resort in Vero Beach. I did not even know there was one! The food was great and Stan had a discount
coupon, even better!
Friday,
February 28, 2014. The
Fosters leave for Maryland (by plane).
Saturday,
March 1, 2014. Lisa
and I walk to town to the Farmer’s Market in Hummiston Park. Lovely place.
Seems much larger than last year.
Sunday,
March 2, 2014. Stan Hedlund come to visit and we go to
breakfast at the Southern Comfort Grill. Judy (Hedlund) is not feeling well as
her back is giving her significant pain. Later, Lisa and I walk to the
beach. On the way, we meet a couple on
bicycles. At lunch, at Casey’s, we meet
the couple on bicycles again. They are
from Maryland and we tell them we are at the marina and give them one of our
boat cards.
Monday,
March 3, 2014. Jim Foster lends us his car, so we run
errands, go to the thrift shop hunting bargains (found a couple of books and
some wine glasses for the boat (plastic), and then grocery shopping. While we are out, the couple we met on Sunday,
come by the marina looking for us. They
leave their names and phone and when we get back we give them a call. His name is Peter Stifle and hers is Ginny
Hall. They have a house in Vero and
invite us to dinner on Wednesday.
Tuesday,
March 4, 2014. Today is our son James’ birthday, so we call
and sing him Happy Birthday. He is home
watching the dogs and watching it snow! Peter
and Ginny pick us up at the marina and we go to their house. I work on the blog
most of the day (I know, it doesn’t appear so) and Lisa goes kayaking. Her friend Anne (in NH) gave her a blow up
kayak that we have been carrying with us.
Lisa is really pleased with it and says it is more stable than a regular
kayak and easy to paddle.
Wednesday,
March 5, 2014. Very nice about a block from the beach. Turns out they are good friends of Henry and
Gale Petronis, who are good friends of Pam and Jerry Jana. All of them have residences in Easton,
MD. We left the boat at Oxford, MD for
the summer, because the Jana’s are close to the boat yard and are sailors and
we have known them maybe 20 years now.
Small world. Peter’s family home
in Maryland was used by James Michener as the model for the house in the book “Chesapeake”.
Ty Cobb also called today and
said our refrigeration would be in on Friday and he would come out on Saturday
and install it. Great!
Thursday,
March 6, 2014. Mainly boat chores today, but Lisa and I did
take a dingy ride.
Friday,
March 7, 2014. Ty called and said the refrigeration came
in! I called Southwest and changed Jeff’s
flight from Ft. Lauderdale to West Palm Beach.
We also called Hertz and rented a car for the week-end. That’s cheaper than paying a limo service or
taxi to pick him up. Jeff is coming on
March 8 for a week (his spring break).
Saturday,
March 8, 2014. Ty shows up at 9 and by 11:30, we have a new
refrigeration unit installed and working.
One nice feature of the new unit is that it is much more efficient than
the old one. I leave at 6pm to drive to
West Palm to meet Jeff. We are back at
the boat by 10pm. Nice to have him with
us once again.
Sunday,
March 9, 2014.
Today is shopping day to provision.
Monday,
March 10, 2014. We return the rental car, make sure the boat
is full of water and fuel.
We meet Stan and Judy for dinner
at Sake, a Japanese and Thai restaurant next door to Mr. Manatees. We can get there by dingy from the
marina. Judy’s back is still an issue
and she gets and MRI on Friday. After
dinner, we load the dingy and get everything ready to depart in the morning.Click here for pictures of St. Augustine to Vero
