Lena Victoire

Saturday, February 2, 2013 – Vero Beach:

Woke up this morning to a couple of crows having a heated discussion about something near our boat, but they finally got tired of arguing and flew off. They were replaced by some more congenial birds. The wind has died down, and the temperature has warmed up a bit. It is nice, though, to have a cooler temperature at night. We slept with the window open and a blanket, but still turned on the heat to take the chill off this morning.

I was properly put in my place yesterday afternoon and severely reminded that I have nothing to complain about especially microwave ovens. I got in contact with some of my northern friends yesterday evening, and found out that since we have been back in Florida from our Christmas break, there have been a couple of major surgeries and potential heart attacks. Priorities were reset rather quickly, and non-working microwaves became a non-issue, and I have made a promise to myself that I have to keep better in touch with friends and relatives.

I do write this “blog” as a personal journal of this trip that we are taking and from time to time, no doubt, will grouse about some perceived misfortune or other, but I do attempt to make it somewhat humorous. I fully realize that Bob and I are very fortunate to be traveling down the waterway on an eight-month vacation, and we have had absolutely no issues to trump what some of our friends are encountering. However, I will probably still find some “trouble” to write about from time to time in order to make this “adventure” memorable in every way.

So enough of that…

We are on our way to pick up a car and do some exploring, and it is a beautiful day. The rental car company has given us a Toyota Yaris - a small compact car about ½ the size of my Honda Civic. But it gets us to the town of Vero Beach, and we have lunch at Kelley’s Irish Pub and Deli. We have a great lunch of Pastrami on Rye in a typical Irish bar setting. After that, Bob drove me to a women’s apparel shop that was highly recommended, and I bought some pants and a shirt. We found Publix, which was right there also, but decided to go shopping tomorrow and instead we drove around the roads by the ocean. The residential areas around here seem to be very nice, and a lot of them are in gated communities - even the condo units seemed to be nicely designed. The landscaping around here is lush and well maintained. I know it’s Saturday, but the area seems to be pretty congested, but I also think the farther south we go, we will find it gets more and more developed.

It’s time to head back to the marina, and we stop at the office to see if we have any mail, but it hasn’t come yet, so we go back to the boat.

Bob and I still need to sit down and discuss our itinerary. He now tells me that when we get to Stuart, we have to navigate the St. Lucie inlet which is a nasty, shifting body of water, and we were also told that there are a lot of inconsiderate sport fisherman boats running in and out of the area – and if you read the blog about when we were between Beaufort and Morehead City you will know what I think of those boaters! We plan to leave here on Wednesday, and Stuart happens to be our next stop, so I’m sure I’ll have an interesting blog. As we head up the St. Lucie River to Whiticar Boatyard in Willoughby Creek, we are supposed to call the boatyard on the phone as we approach the creek, and they will come out in a boat to guide us in to their place as there is practically no water up where they are and the channel is not marked. Doesn’t that sound exciting? I wish Bob had waited to tell me all this on Tuesday instead of today, so I will now have to think about this for several days – just when I was starting to grow my fingernails again.

It is 7:00 p.m. We are still not hungry after the lunch we ate, but the cat is demanding dinner, so I will sign off now.