Tuesday, February 5, 2013 – Vero Beach:

            Woke up to a picture perfect day – bright blue, cloudless sky, temperature already comfortably warm – no wonder people like it down here.  After breakfast, and it just seemed like a perfect day for bacon and eggs, we intended to do a boat cleaning (inside and out), but during breakfast we got a text message from some friends who were in Marathon, but had gotten a good weather window to head for the west coast of Florida, and they were letting us know they were on their way.  So Bob and I got to talking about where they were headed and where we were headed, and we decided to take a look at our chart for the west coast.  Hmmmm….where is that chart?  Well, to make a long story short, after turning the boat upside down and shaking it rather strongly, we realized that we didn’t have a chart for the west coast, and as a matter of fact, we never had a chart for the west coast.  Darn.  What does that say about our planning? 

            So this necessitated a trip to the local West Marine store, but first, we thought it would be prudent to call them and make sure they had a chart in stock.  Well, they put Bob on hold and after a few long minutes, came back and said they were very sorry, but they apparently didn’t have that particular chart in stock.  Darn again.  So Bob is about to call the West Marine store in Stuart when the phone rings, and it is the nice man Bob just talked to at the store here in Vero, and guess what, he found a chart!  I personally thought it was unbelievably nice of him to call us back, and maybe customer service isn’t dead after all. 

            So we ditched cleaning the boat idea, and put on some decent clothes and headed for the local bus, which just happens to stop here at the marina and ride you all over town for free…and…it drops you off right at the West Marine store! We got our chart and a couple other boat necessities and were back on the boat within the hour!  The bus is a real convenience as it takes you over to the stores on one route and then over to the beach on another route, and it picks you right up here at the marina, and like I said, it’s FREE!

It’s lunch time now, so we have a sandwich up on the flybridge, and Missy Mouser honored us with her presence after a little coaxing; and after a little exploring found a sunny spot for a few minutes until something scared her, and she headed for the indoors again.  Meanwhile Bob and I are talking about our trip tomorrow to Stuart, and he casually mentions that we will be going into Stuart and Willoughby Creek at low tide.  Low tide??? What??? The boatyard people have to come out to our boat and guide us in because the creek is so shallow, and it isn’t marked, and we’re going in at LOW tide?!  Will somebody please tell me again why I am doing this??!  I am just going to hope I haven’t angered the Sea Gods in the last couple of weeks!

The rest of the afternoon is ahead of us, and we decide to go back to the first item on our agenda this morning and clean the boat.   So after a thorough cleaning inside and out, we are shipshape again, and at least if we run aground tomorrow, we will look good doing it!

I decide that a shower would be a good idea, because I don’t know if this boatyard will have a place that you would want to take a shower in, and since the boat is going to probably be overrun with repairmen, I may not want to take a shower on the boat either.  The afternoon is about over now, and I think we will have poached salmon, spinach, and mashed potatoes for dinner.  We can’t grill out here at this marina, so I have been cooking indoors (ha ha, that usually consisted of cereal or cottage cheese and fruit since we have been going out to lunch a lot and that was like dinner to us), but I am starting to miss a steak on the grill.

Well, tomorrow should be interesting.  Stay tuned.

Looking south from our boat - we head this way tomorrow!