I had one goal for today - laundry! The Faro Blanco marina in Marathon has two much-sought-after washers and similarly two dryers. While there, I minimized my laundry washing. When I arrived at the Vero Beach City Marina and saw six washers and dryers, I jumped for joy. Sad, I know.
When I walked up to visit the head this morning, all the washers were available. I walked back to the boat, collected my clothes, sheets, and towels to be washed, walked back to the laundry facility, and found every washer busy! Extremely bad timing on my part! Clark helped me carry my four loads up to the laundry room. We plopped them down on top of a couple of dryers to wait our turn.
While waiting for the washers to become available, I went back to the boat to search for Clark's sunglasses, which he apparently misplaced yesterday and could not find this morning. Since they are prescription sunglasses and the only pair he owns, we really needed to find them. We searched the boat from one end to the other, walked out and searched the car because we knew he had them yesterday while shopping, called the last store we visited, looked in the marina lost and found, and asked at the marina office desk with no success.
Although the unfruitful search for the glasses was frustrating, some good came out of it. When we entered the Captain's Lounge in search of a lost and found and Clark's lost sunglasses, we noticed a table setup where boaters leave items they no longer want that may be of use to other boaters. As I looked at the table and saw a scale there designed to measure small quantities in ounces and grams, I wondered if fate played a hand in bringing us into this room.
I would not have bothered to investigate the lounge had I not been on the search for sunglasses. Had he explored the lounge on his own, Clark would not have recognized the table as the freebie table. Yesterday, when we visited so many stores, one of the items Clark searched for was a scale designed to measure grams. Here one sat, for free, waiting for a new owner. Unbelievable! We scooped it up and took it back to the boat to measure out grams of grease for the thrust bearing work he needs to do on the boat.
The wash got done in between walks to the car and the marina office. I managed to just sit and relax during the dry cycle. As I sat there thinking about the sunglasses, I concluded that they had to be on the boat somewhere. When the laundry completed it cycles, I headed back to the boat determined to give it another good look over.
Once again, I covered the boat from bow to stern even looking in the engine room and sticking my head in the the bilge compartment where Clark worked fixing the air conditioner. I tidied up as I made my way through the boat in hopes of finding the glasses under a coat or hat or paper. Feeling stressed and close to giving up, it occurred to me to go through our stack of reusable shopping bags, and there at the bottom of one of the bags were his sunglasses. Hallelujah! I can sleep tonight.
Just because we are on a boat does not mean that we escape from taxes. Having finally received all the necessary documents to get our taxes prepared, we spent a good portion of the afternoon printing and copying documents. When we send that off in the mail tomorrow, one more item can be checked off the major headache list.
With the weekend approaching and the restaurants crowded starting tomorrow night. I suggested we go out for dinner tonight. Clark asked someone and got a few names of places that we might try, but once I looked them up on Google, none of them sounded like they had what I wanted to eat. Later, I found some folks chatting by the Captain's Lounge and asked them. I got two recommendations.
Since neither Clark nor I jump for joy at fish tacos, we opted for their second choice recommendation - Mr. Manatee's here in Vero Beach. I pushed Clark to get going earlier than we usually eat so we could get to the restaurant in time for happy hour. I had no need to worry about Happy Hour, however, as the sign out front said their Happy Hour hours ran from 12 to 7 daily.
The service was excellent, the food was delicious, and the decorations were adorable.
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| Our greeter at the hostess desk |
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