2026 April: Vero Beach to NASA Causeway Bridge

 11 April 2026

Depart: Private Dock Vero Beach, FL 8:00

Arrive: NASA Causeway Bridge anchorage 4:00

Distance: 58 nm

Travel Time: ~ 8 hours

Conditions: Still a bit windy; cool enough to want a jacket when out of the sun

After several days of torrential rain and electrical work on Don's new-to-him Hinkley, it was time to once again start heading north. Knowing Clark wanted to get going early this morning, I was up and preparing to leave before the sun made its appearance. Sunrise today occurred at 7:03 at our location.

View of sunrise on Bethel Creek

View to the west on Bethel Creek

Clark was a little slower to start moving this morning. I left him to sleep as I got things going. He said he heard me opening the hatch to the upper helm to prep for leaving and knew he needed to get moving as well. 

Yesterday, we made sure the water tank was full and the garbage cans empty. With provisioning and laundry done on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, we were ready to go! As we prepared to drop the lines connecting us to the dock, Anna and Don came out to wish us a Bon Voyage!

Au Revoir to friends!

Since we needed a pump-out to start our travels, we headed to the Vero Beach City Marina as our first stop of the day. 

Fortunately, no one was taking up space on the fuel dock, so we could pull right up. Unfortunately, the pump-out was exceedingly slow going, and we were there longer than we wanted to be. I commented to Clark that it was "like watching paint dry" as I monitored the percent full on the tank as the numbers slowly decreased. The process took a full 20 minutes to complete, and then finally we were on our way!

As we made our way along the Indian River, we saw many familiar sights. Since today was a Saturday and the weather was cooperative, we saw some folks enjoying the waterway islands.

Beached boat

Small boat by exposed sandy area

Another small boat near another island

Enjoying privacy on this island

Colorful letters next to this pontoon boat
spell "FLORIDA"

Our travels took us past what looked like a floating cabin on the river. We could see the "building" had windows and a sliding glass door with two chairs on either side. As we got close enough, Clark said it was a "cabin" on a barge. It appeared to be quite a nice place to hang out on the river.

Front view of "cabin on a barge"

Looking back after passing the "cabin"

One thing we do not see on the water when we head south in the autumn are the nesting osprey that we see when heading north in the spring. I wondered how the recent weather impacted their nesting as I noticed one bird returning to the nest with nesting materials in her beak. The ICW markers make exceptionally good nesting areas!

The birds shown below were making cheeping noises as we passed. Clark annoyingly tried to "cheep" back at them!

Somewhat surprising, we saw only a moderate amount of boat traffic on the Indian River today. I might have expected more, given folks had been hunkering down out of weather for the past several days. Perhaps, given improved conditions, the majority started moving yesterday where we stayed put for that one extra day in Vero Beach. We passed a few slower boats and some passed us but nothing out of the ordinary.

Over the radio, where we could hear only one side of a "conversation", an irate boater was berating a fellow boater as having no boating knowledge given his recent unknown-to-us action. He said he had taken the boater's boat name and would be contacting the US Coast Guard with a report of the boater's bad boating. When the other boater said something back to him, he said, "Tell it to the Coast Guard when they contact you!" It would be interesting to know what offended the guy so much.

Given that nesting birds and one irate boater were the main events of the day, I would say it was pretty uneventful. We passed under the Eau Gallie Causeway bridge where Clark pointed out that the Merit Island Dragon used to be located here.  A while back I did an acrylic painting of the dragon and gave it to my friends Sandy and Bill.

Merit Island Dragon
(Acrylic Painting by Ev Woodworth)

The majority of the time on the water today, Clark navigated and I had my head down working on word puzzles. I bought a Dell Puzzle magazine to be sure I have something to do along the way besides watching the water flow by. 

Just before 4:00, we turned out of the ICW channel and dropped anchor within sight of NASA by the NASA Causeway bridge now called the Sally Ride Memorial Bridge. 

Anchored near the NASA Causeway bridge

Earlier in the day, as we motored towards this area, we heard on the radio that an air show was happening today. 

Unfortunately, we were never in a position to get even a glimpse of the action.  Sigh!

After securing the boat, I took several pictures of the area where we dropped anchor. With mostly clear skies, we had a good view of the NASA buildings off to the east of us.

If only that launch that was scheduled for, and successfully launched, at 7:41 this morning would have been later in the day or tomorrow morning ... oh well!

From here, our travel plan targets for anchoring are 1) Daytona Beach, 2) north of St. Augustine, and 3) Cumberland Island, Georgia. A common saying among boaters is the following: "Plans are written in the sand at low tide." meaning plans can easily be washed away and need to be rewritten.

As the evening wore on, we got a neighbor in the anchorage

When the sun reached the horizon, our neighbor blew the conch to note sunset. Hearing the conch made me think of Roger on Moonglade who blew the conch shell every night at Marlin Bay!  

I hoped to get good sunset pictures, and I was not disappointed. I thought the first one was good, until

I saw the second one!

Sunset tonight occurred at 7:46 in our location. 

2026 April: More Vero Beach FL

 9 April 2026

Today I had a leisurely day planned and made Clark pancakes for breakfast. I realized as I pulled out the current open bottle that we would soon be out of syrup. We had enough for today but not for next time. When I was out with Sandy, she reminded me about the gourmet market down the street. 

I decided that, if the weather allowed, I would walk to the store to stock up on maple syrup. I checked the radar picture and decided I had a brief window where I would mostly stay dry but would have to leave right away. The Village Beach Market is just under a mile down the road. 

The walking trip to the market was mostly dry. It did sprinkle for a short while but I picked a good time for a walk and I enjoyed the outing. On prior walks through here I have cut through the Jaycee Beach Park to the boardwalk to stroll along the beach but not today.

Jaycee Beach Park
along the ocean

All the palm trees had their fronds pointed in the same direction due to the wind. I had my hat tied tight to my head to avoid losing it in the wind.

Bent over palm trees

Still cloudy skies

On my walk I spied a black bird fighting the wind. His feathers were being blown about as he held on tight to the monument he sat upon.

"Hang on tight!"

Head down against the wind

I continued on my way and made it to the store without getting wet, found the maple syrup, and left again in record time. On the walk back to the house, it did rain but fortunately not very hard and not very long. By the time I passed the Bethel Creek House the rain had passed.

Bethel Creek House on park grounds

Mural on Bethel Creek House

I have walked past Bethel Creek House many times and did not know its history. I decided to look it up and found it to be "The first House of Refuge in Florida" (more detail below).

Information from a Google Search

Clark installed the first of the new galvanic isolator for the house 30A power. The isolator for the A/C power was coming the next day. After wiring it, he tested the new isolator in the 15A GFI outlet and it worked. He tested the inverter charger and it began charging the thirsty battery bank into the next day. He also removed the display and the wiring that went to each of the two the galvanic tester modules.

Later in the day, with my last-minute shopping now complete, I decided to do some art. I have a stockpile of pictures on my phone that I have downloaded from the internet as ideas. I thought about pulling out my acrylic paints and tackling one of these myriad options. Then I came up with a different idea. 

My friend, Cathy, had a Bernese Mountain dog years ago. Sadly, as dogs do, he (Bruno) died far too soon. Knowing how much she loved that dog, I decided to see if I could create a greeting card with a picture on it of a Bernese Mountain dog. For the sake of time, I decided to do it in colored pencils. 

This was my model from the internet.

Cathy and Franklin invited us over to their house for dinner tonight. Anna and Don were also invited, so the four of us drove over to arrive at 5:00 as planned. Upon arrival, I gave the card to Cathy, and she was slightly overcome by the card, so I gather it turned out to her liking. 

The weather today was, once again, miserable. Florida needs rain for the plants and trees, but the continuous heavy rain is causing flooding issues. A steady drizzle or light rain would be fine, but the rain we have seen this week is coming down "in buckets"! The winds to go with the rain have been wild at up to 30 + knots or more. 

When we left our boat to walk up to the house for the drive to Cathy's house, we had a light sprinkle. As we pulled out of the driveway, it was pouring! It rained for the drive over and continued to pour as we sat with cocktails and finger food. We sat and watched the weather until Franklin jumped up to go outside to pump out the excess rain water his pool. The water level was rising, and he had to let some water out before it started overflowing and causing erosion around the pool. 

As always Cathy outdid herself on food. We had more hors d'oeuvres to choose from than I could count. Dinner was crab cakes, scalloped potatoes, and baked Brussel sprouts with options for dessert - chocolate mousse or lemon bars or both. Again, I came away stuffed!

10 April 2026

Today the sun finally came out! With the sun came workmen to the dock where we are staying. On past visits here, the dock had room for two boats on either side of a fixed dock. Now, however, a boat lift is being installed for the Hinkley that Don recently purchased. 

Over the past few days, the work crew could do little due to the heavy rain. They showed up a couple of times and were "washed" away as they could not get done the jobs needed to complete installation of the lift. 

They appeared first thing today to get to work.

Meanwhile, the Hinkley is at a neighbor's dock and where I can find Clark when he's not on our boat or out with our friends. He has installed the second galvanic isolator and found yet another issue. He found a neutral-to-ground connection related to the air conditioning breaker panel that was subtle. The ground bus bar and the neutral bus bar were shorted, even when there were no wires connected to the ground bus bar. It turned out, they were screwed into a metal plate that tied them together. He moved the two ground wires to a separate ground bus nearby. This time, the test passed and the GFI outlet remained energized. We plan to leave Vero Beach tomorrow, and he still had a few things to finish up. 

He had to stop work at noon because we had a lunch date planned at a local restaurant with our hosts, Don and Anna, and our friends here, Franklin and Cathy. Clark made a reservation for 12:30 at Ocean Grill, and he needed to get cleaned up in non-work clothes before we could go. 

We have been to Ocean Grill before and enjoyed the food. 

Ocean Grill Restaurant, Vero Beach, FL

We were surprised to see a beautiful Bentley in the parking lot with the top down - brave considering the weather we've been experiencing.

The decorations inside the restaurant are quite interesting. I notice something new each time we eat here.

"Greeter" still stands at the door

View from our table in the restaurant

Artwork in the hallway

Knight in shining armor
guarding the restrooms

Cathy, Anna, Don, Clark, & Franklin

The views outside were also interesting.

Entrance to the grill Gift Shop

In the window of the gift shop

The restaurant is on the ocean, so we got an up-close view of the wave action. The surf was rough today.

Even so, people were enjoying the beach right outside the restaurant in Vero Beach.

Some brave soles were ignoring the rip current warnings and diving the waves along the shore.

After lunch, including dessert for some of us, Cathy and Franklin returned to Don's house for a quick peek at the Hinkley Clark has been working on. 

Hinkley

Clark showing us the electrical panel 
he's been dealing with

Boat's helm station

Electrical Panel Clark's been working behind

It's a beautiful boat but looks cramped to live on for any period of time that's probably why it is called a "picnic boat".

After a short time, Clark finished up and declared the project done! Don said he would take care of covering the hole, left by the display panel that was removed, using a blank electrical faceplate and some double-sided tape. This avoids adding any new holes where he may want to install a battery monitor. Now we can leave tomorrow with no "loose ends".

As we climbed off the Hinkley, we heard a plane coming in hard and fast like a dive-bomber. We looked  up and saw a yellow plane coming straight down the creek at high speed. He suddenly swerved off to circle around and come back. He did this several times.

As shown in the pictures above, the sunny day we had this morning was replaced with dark clouds and occasional drizzle. As we stood next to the Hinkley, we started to get dripped on as the rain came on stronger and stronger. At least we hoped it was rain we were feeling as Franklin told us the plane was most likely spraying for mosquitoes as he circled around.

Five minutes later the rain was gone but the dark clouds remained. On the bright side, the temperatures are lovely and cool. The sun did come out again later this afternoon, so I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to go for a walk. I couldn't resist a walk to see the ocean in its full glory.

Surf crashing along the shore behind me

Red Flag = "High Hazard"

The red flag did not keep folks out of the ocean.

Man riding waves on a board all alone

Woman with several children out in the waves

I had fun watching the birds in the wind. They did a lot of station keeping holding steady against the wind or gliding sideways with the wind. They also flew by at lightning speed when they flapped their wings and went with the wind!

In an effort to prevent erosion of the sand, young grass can be seen to have been planted along the beach.

Replenishing the dunes

My stroll turned into a nature hike as, in addition to a variety of birds, I found various wildlife along the way.

Rabbit having a tasty snack in the park

Curly-tailed lizards 
roved the park in abundance

Before we leave Vero Beach, we have two chores to complete. 1) top up the water tank and 2) stop at the city marina to empty our waste holding tank. Then we will be heading north on the Indian River to look for an anchorage as our next stop.