Florida: Vero Beach to Cocoa

Day 295
Sunday May 1, 2016
No Travel

Today was a day of reorganizing the boat now that we were back in the States. Clark spent time cleaning the outside of the boat while I worked on the inside. Late afternoon we abandoned our self-assigned chores as fellow "loopers", Connie and Tom from rPAD, came to visit us. We talked so long that when they left, it was too late to continue my project. With the interruption I lost impetus, and the clock said I had to start dinner. First, though, I had to "find" the galley.  The most I could manage was to stash the remainder of the items scattered around the salon and galley back into the second stateroom to be tackled on another day.

Day 296
Monday May 2, 2016
No Travel

Dick and Deanna, folks on the boat Sereanna across the dock from us, took us shopping today. We told them yesterday that we had some stores we needed to visit, and they offered to take us in their car if we could wait until Monday to go. We decided to extend our stay in Vero Beach by one day and take them up on their generous offer.

We had some electronics to purchase, so we visited Best Buy, Office Depot, and finally Walmart to acquire all the various items we needed. While in Walmart we picked up some food supplies as well, so it was a very productive morning. To thank Dick and Deanna for taxiing us from place to place, we took them out to lunch at a cafe-style restaurant near the beach.

Dick and Deanna - caught eating at the cafe

 After lunch Clark wandered around the area to capture some pictures of the beach.

Vero Beach Boardwalk

Vero Beach Beach

After our fish and chips or hamburgers we all agreed we "needed" ice cream for dessert. Since the cafe had a minimal number of flavors and an even less number of inviting ones, we drove to an ice cream shop down the street where Dick and Deanna treated us to ice cream.

Our outing with Dick and Deanna turned into an almost all-day event. We left the boat at 9:45 and did not get back to the boat until sometime after 3:00. What a great day! We had a very successful shopping trip followed by good food and excellent company!

After returning to the boat, I spent a bit of time admiring my new purchases and then we walked over to a neighboring dock area to visit rPAd (Connie and Tom).

Ev Talking to Zoe on rPAD

Once again we spent longer talking with them than we anticipated, and it was quite late by the time we got back to the boat to put dinner together - somewhere around 7:30. I made a quick, stove-top version / modified-recipe Chicken Testaverde for dinner which we really enjoyed.

Before going to bed I worked on setting up my new laptop. I got the basics in place so I could work on blog entries.

Day 297
Tuesday May 3, 2016
NM Today: 48
NM To Date: 4694

We learned that a friend of a fellow Mainship owner back in NJ has a friend living in Vero Beach. Clark had spoken to him, Don on Mariah, and set up a time for us to come visit before pulling out of Vero Beach this morning. We biked over to his nearby house at 9:30 and had a lovely time meeting him and enjoying relaxed conversation on his covered patio overlooking the water.

View from Don's Backyard

We left at 11:00 to get back to the boat for the checkout time of noon. The streets in Vero Beach are pretty like the one shown below with overhanging tree branches that make the street look almost like a tunnel.

Natural tunnel made by branches overhanging the street

Clark decided that today we would move the boat to Cocoa, Florida where we could find a marina for the night. We pulled away from the dock on schedule, but it took us several more minutes to leave the marina area.

While at the marina, Clark met a fellow Mainship 350 owner. They had their boat on a mooring ball, so before leaving for Cocoa, we stopped by for a brief visit. We exchanged boat cards and phone numbers, and they gave us some very quick pointers on "must-see" places to visit on our way north out of Florida.

Traveling the ICW is vastly different than roaming the waters of the Bahamas. Today I had a flashback to our travels on the Mississippi River as Clark called Champion, a tug pushing two barges, on the VHF radio to request a pass. I haven't seen a barge since November when I saw them all too often.  Besides the unexpected (by me) barge traffic, we saw some more familiar and expected sights.

Osprey on the ICW "88" Marker

A Pelican on ICW "5" Green Marker

The trip to Cocoa took longer than anticipated, and so for some period of time along the way, Clark cranked the engines up in RPM to run at closer to 14 knots than our looper-typical 7.9 or so. Still we got a call from the Cocoa marina a little after 4:00 asking us when we expected to arrive. Since we could not get there until after the office closed at 5:00, they made arrangements to have someone available after hours to greet us, assist with finding our slip, tying up for the night and checking in.

As they helped with our lines, they mentioned that we could get good pizza in town, and Clark and I were immediately sold on that idea. We had to wait for a thunderstorm to pass over before heading out for dinner. Afterwards, although the sidewalks sported lots of puddles, we had no more rain worries as we walked through town.

Slightly Soggy Street in Cocoa, Florida

Taylor Park in Cocoa, Florida

The pizza was every bit as good or better than reported by the dock help. We thoroughly enjoyed dinner. Afterwards I felt way to full to consider eating ice cream, but Clark had seen a shop as we walked through town earlier, and after dinner, he headed straight there for dessert.

Beverly's Ice Cream Shop

 As we walked through town we did some window shopping and found a cushion perfect for our friends, Angie and Dan, on Sea Horse.

Sea Horse Cushion

As soon as we got back to the boat, I jumped on the computer to work on my overdue blog updates. We left it open with the marina regarding whether we stay or go tomorrow. Some foul weather is anticipated for tomorrow. If it is too foul, we will stay one additional night before moving on.