2023: Vero Beach to Cocoa FL

 30 March 2023

no boat travel

On this, our final day in Vero Beach, our friends Cathy and Franklin offered to give us the driving tour of Vero Beach to see the parts of the city that we never see by boat. They picked us up after lunch, and our adventure began.

Vero Beach extends much further than I ever imagined having only seen a microscopic portion of the area. We saw lots of luxurious homes and many gated communities on our tour. Plus, we got to visit the Disney Vero Beach Resort. We had no idea that Disney had a resort here!

Harbour Side Yacht Club pictures ...

Pictures of the general area ...

Disney Vero Beach pictures ...

Look out! He's hungry!

Not sure who's more surprised!

We walked through the hotel and saw some pieces of art ...

and evidence of the past use of this site.

It was a packing plant in its previous life. 

We decided to walk down to the see the ocean.

Clark and Franklin

Expensive day rates to rent a cabana

Ocean conditions for today if you wish to try out the waves in the ocean,

or you can use the pool but only if you have a room key for entry.

I found this plaque interesting as my uncle's favorite team was the Brooklyn Dodgers!

We found directions to all the other Disney resorts. A membership at one will allow you to trade to visit another.

We saw lovely grounds here ...

and great views of the ocean.

When we left the hotel area, Franklin decided to cross A-1-A and drive over to the other side of Disney's property.

We found the entrance to the pedestrian / golf cart tunnel back to the hotel.

"If you believe in Magic, you belong!"

Golf cart coming out of tunnel

Besides seeing the various residential areas and Disney resort property, we also got to see the local Walmart, Home Depot, and many varieties of Publix but I felt no need to include photos of those places in the Blog!

After a full afternoon of touring, we came back to the boat to hang out and chat until dinner time when Clark and Franklin took off to bring home pizza from Vincent's Pizzeria. It was a full and fun day with great friends. 

Since I have been remiss in including sunset pictures in the blog, I made a point to go out with my camera at sunset to make up for my lack of diligence!

Looking east ...

oh, whoops, I'm supposed to look to the west!

31 March 2023 (can't believe it's April tomorrow)

Depart: Vero Beach Private Dock 9:15

Depart: Vero Beach Public Marina pump out station 10:00

Arrive: Cocoa, Florida anchorage 3:45

Conditions: Sunny, Breezy with 20+ knot winds (what wind!?)

After hanging out for several days in Vero Beach, Clark decided it was time to move on. He had been waiting here to hopefully connect with a tech from the Hull Shield company but that fell through. He did manage to get some of the repairs he wanted to address taken care of. We had special time spent with friends. I got to do food provisioning and found a new food store I love (Fresh Market). I discovered that garden centers can be a thing of beauty, and we both got to enjoy the narrated driving tour of Vero Beach and Sebastian, Florida. 

One service not available at the private dock where we stayed while in Vero Beach is a pump out station. We plan to do a lot of anchoring out, and the tank was over 50% full as we pulled away from the dock. Clark called the municipal marina to check on coming in for service. They told him to come ahead as the dock was empty. 

Our boat neighbors were there to see us off and wish us safe travels. Greg and Lara on "Karuna" will be leaving here soon to head to the Bahamas. 

Lara does yoga and added her influence to the dock.

She has a vegetable garden on her upper deck and as we prepared to leave, she handed me the first tomato from her harvest. 

A perfect,
home (boat) -grown red tomato.

We waved goodbye. No more than ten minutes later we arrived at the municipal dock to find it taken up by two boats that were adding fuel to their tanks. Clark speculated that they heard his call on the VHF radio and rushed to get there before we arrived. We hung out in the water off the dock until it was clear. That took about 30 minutes of our time. We were told by our boat neighbors at the private dock that the pump out equipment worked extremely slowly, but with our tank so full, we had no choice but to wait.

As we waited for our turn, we got to watch the other boaters. Suddenly, the man on one boat grabbed the nozzle and diesel fuel spouted up into the air like a fountain. It covered his boat and, I expect, a lot of him. Apparently, he saw it was full to the top (probably running down the side of the boat), and he yanked it out of the fill without unlocking the nozzle from the on position. 

Since we were downwind, it was not long before all I could smell was diesel fumes! His wife brought out multiple towels for him to use to wipe down the boat and his legs. I hope they threw the towels away and don't light any matches in the near future. He might watch the fill a little more closely next time.

When we finally got to tie to the dock, the pump out took no more than 10 minutes and that included the tie up and throwing off of lines. I am glad that our boat neighbor's experience did not repeat itself on us. 

Finally underway, I got text instructions from Cathy to look for nesting birds along the way. I found a few osprey parents at work.

Mom osprey

Mom and Dad

We saw a few views of the Indian River as we traveled northward.

Sea Gull Island

After that Clark focused on driving and I laid down on the bench while we both listened to stories on NPR Science Friday. 

Clark had planned to go as far as Titusville tonight, but he saw something in his email that changed his mind to stop at Cocoa. Had there been room at the town dock, we would have tied up, but the dock was already full. After we docked, he took care of paperwork related to his email message. Tomorrow, if he can find space to dock, he may go into town to hit the post office before we continue on.

Clark got a show at the anchorage near the Cocoa bridge. (He did not let me know there was anything to look at and I had my nose in Facebook.)

Pictures of the Cocoa anchorage ...

Cocoa Bridge

Boats in the anchorage as the sun goes down

Sunset at Cocoa, Florida

2023: Vero Beach Garden Centers

 29 March 2023

no boat travel

I was sitting on the boat with no plans for the day when Cathy texted me to see if I would like to go to "Rock City Gardens" with her. I had no idea what I was signing up for, but I was all in. She said she would pick me up after lunch. Of course when Clark heard I had an outing planned, he asked me to go to a marine parts store and get him some things he needed.

Cathy picked me up at 1:15, and we were on our way. We took care of Clark's request first to get that out of the way then we were on to Rock City Gardens to buy something to help heal Cathy's sick tree. Rock City Gardens is a huge garden center with a lot of knowledgeable folks working there. 

Retail nursery on 7 acres

Cathy at the entrance to the garden center

Besides hundreds of plants in every imaginable variety, we saw many interesting fountains on display.

For anyone wanting an urn for plants, the selections seemed to be endless.

Intermingled with lovely flowers, the garden center contained some very nice statues.

The gift shop had lovely art ...

and items with sayings on them that made me laugh out loud!

Although we had a grand time strolling around the grounds, the garden center was out of stock on the product that Cathy hoped to purchase. She said there was another garden center down the road, so we stopped there next.

This garden center had urns similar to those at Rock City, but they also had some more colorful options.

Their flower displays were not as impressive as Rock City, but their decorative art was very different and colorful.

I wanted to take a dragon home with me but very much doubted that Clark would approve.

I never guessed that a garden center, let alone two of them, could be such fun to visit. Cathy found what she needed to buy at this second garden center.

After a quick stop for me to pick up some bread at the store, Cathy dropped me off at the boat. While I had been out admiring plants, Clark worked on cleaning rust marks off the boat and then spent some time playing his guitar. 

We had dinner plans with Cathy and Franklin. Cathy dropped me off around 4:00, and they came back at 5:15 to collect us for our nighttime plans. Because we like to eat outside, and because it was something out of the ordinary, Franklin suggested we eat at an historic restaurant called "Waldo's by the Sea". 

Below description copied from the internet ...

Ev at entrance to Waldo's

Many bells are seen on the grounds ...

along with other interesting pieces of history.

We had only one issue with this restaurant - the wind. Yesterday, we would have roasted in the hot and humid weather. Today we had a very cool and strong breeze. I worried that it would blow our dinners off the table. I was very glad that Clark suggested we bring long-sleeved clothing as it was necessary to be warm enough to enjoy dinner.

The restaurant offered live music from 7:00 to 10:00

The restaurant was located right on the beach. 

We could not believe our eyes when we saw the door shown below that appears to have come from Barrow, Alaska to be located beside the entrance to the restaurant. When he was in college, our son, Jeff, had a summer job that briefly took him to Barrow, Alaska. I couldn't help but take a picture and text it to him. He was shocked to see this!

After dinner, we walked to Kilwin's to get ice cream for dessert. On the way we got to see more of what this historic site had to offer.

more bells

carvings

Anchor and Chain

Frog eating a fly statue

We had just managed to warm up from the cold ocean breeze when we walked into the Kilwin's building that felt more like a freezer than a shop. We grabbed our goodies and ate outside where it was only slightly warmer.

Cathy and Franklin dropped us off at 8:00. Clark immediately headed into the engine room to install the parts that I picked up for him earlier in the day. Unbeknownst to me, I bought him washers and gaskets for the zincs on the engines. He had to remove the old ones and replace them with new.

Removing the old gasket

Reassembled and ready to install 

Installed

When we walked out of Waldo's, the sun was going down, so for the first time in Vero Beach on this visit, we saw a little bit of a sunset.

Sunset as seen from the entrance to Waldo's
in Vero Beach, FL