Riding the Short Bus

November 5, 2004

Friday, November 05, 2004 - Eau Gallie, Eau Gallie, FL - By Amy

We've been moving anchorages a lot and not really going anywhere. The wind kicked up overnight and came out of the north, making our position north of the bridge and protective land spit no longer protective. When another boat here broke free and came too close for comfort, we decided it was time to move. We are now south of the bridge and the boat is riding much better.

Yet again, it's a day for the library. Thomas went over to the SSCA conference (Seven Seas Cruising Association) for a minute, as we had heard there was a parking lot flea market. Nothing in the parking lot; the vendors are inside (perhaps due to rain). You need a ticket to get in, and neither of us have any interest in this conference. We've seen the people around and heard some of the seminar topics, and not to say that we know it all by any means, but it doesn't sound like there's much to glean from "classroom" sessions. After last night at West Marine, I am even more determined that Thomas and I are not made for these types of events.

The only disappointing thing is that all the cruisers we've seen here (there are a LOT of boats) are decades older than us. We haven't seen a single younger couple here. Perhaps all young people shun the SSCA like we do, perhaps there will be more people from our generation down the way...but we are starting to worry that all of our friends will be 50+. Not a bad thing, but it is more of a stretch to find things in common with people who have raised kids, finished out a career, and have the comfort of a normal pension/retirement, which allows most of these folks to go to marinas, rent cars, and do stuff like that more often than we can (unless we want to go back to work sooner and for longer than we'd hoped!).

It's rainy and cool, so we will spend the day at the library, happy hour at Conchy Joes I'm sure, then back to the boat to prepare to leave in the morning. Even waterfront libraries can't hold my attention forever.

Fortunately, the night looked up when we got to Conchy Joe's. Yet again, there was the happy hour buffet free, and the food was pretty good. All the SSCA people showed up, and we continued to be disappointed that they were all really old. Not a single young person in the bunch. There was one couple with kids, but the kids were wearing matching sweatshirt's proclaiming something about Jesus, so we figured they weren't our type either.

Finally we met a couple vendors who do sails and rigging and got into a good conversation with them. A band set up, and they turned out to be excellent. So it wound up being a lot of red wine for me and a good deal of dancing. A good time was had by all...except for the geriatrics, who went home as soon as the music started, leaving the dance floor to younger locals. A young Cuban girl tried to take Thomas and I home, but we resisted.

Saturday, November 06, 2004 - Mooring Field, Vero Beach, FL - By Amy

It was a day that made us remember why we bought a sailboat and not a trawler...and after so long on the ICW, we were much in need of the reminder. Despite a late night at the bar last evening, we were underway at a reasonable hour and put the sails up as soon as we got out of the anchorage. They stayed up the entire way to Vero Beach. We started out making 4-6 knots with small following waves. The wind began dead behind us and the sails were a bit stubborn about where they wanted to fly. Fortunately, the wind moved forward so that it was just behind the beam, occassionally in front of the beam, and we picked up speed. At one point today, we were doing more than 11 knots, so we decided to reduce sail and still averaged nearly 7 knots for the day under partial jib.

Not only was the sailing great, but we also caught our best eating fish to date. It was a Spanish mackerel about 32 inches long, weighing about four pounds. This happened within a couple miles of our starting point and it was quite a surprise. I was actually worried about getting under a large (65 foot) bridge under full sail set wing and wing and the rod didn't make any noise. I called Thomas to help with the bridge and he noticed we had a fish. We didn't want to lose such a monster, so we threw him on the cockpit floor while he dug up the fillet knife, etc. Needless to say, our friend was not happy and flopped around so much he managed to dislodge the hook on his own and spurt blood all over the cockpit. Thomas was pleased to be able to yell "Let the decks flow with the blood of the nonbeliever!", although he was not as thrilled to have to clean it all up later.

After the fishing action was over, Thomas finished making a loaf of bread, which we will be putting in the oven here soon. Our fish is probably two night's worth of meals, so we expect to be living high on the hog (or fish) here in Vero.

Thomas also managed to fix the problem with the dinghy engine connector. It turned out to be very minor (the little prong thing moved and it wasn't latching), and all is well. On the power front, we're making tons of it at the moment. Thomas and I both believe that the battery monitor thing needs to be tweaked so that it isn't so pessimistic.

If Vero is the least bit nice, we expect to hole up here for a couple of days. We are running low on provisions and would like to find a grocery store, and there are a number of small jobs to get done on the boat. Most importantly, I really want to go to the beach.

After checking in, we walked down to the beach. Turned out to be a tour of hurricane destruction. There are several waterfront houses and hotels that basically fell in when the beach washed out from under them and are now being demolished.

We did find a waterfront bar that was open. It was pricey and difficult to get service because it was so busy.

We got back to the dinghy dock and saw George and Jackie from Sea Otter II. Returned to the boat for fish, which we did on the grill. It was good but not as good as salmon on the grill. Probably just a matter of finding the right recipe. The bread turned out really well. I think we have essentially honed the perfect loaf.

Sunday, November 07, 2004 - Mooring Field, Vero Beach, FL - By Amy

The bus to town doesn't run on Sundays but being impatient folk we started out on our bikes. First we found a dive shop where they had a selection of women's wet suits. Despite feeling like a stuffed baloney, I selected one.

The night before, the no-see-ums, these evil little biting bugs, invaded our happy home. Thus, the most important errand of the day was to find no-see-um screen, or wedding veil material, which we'd been told works just as well. We stopped in to West Marine and were told Wal-Mart was the best place. Sure, it was 6 miles out, but we were on bikes.

So off we went...and went...and went. After we'd gone at least 6 miles, we stopped a guy mowing his lawn to ask how far the Wal-Mart was, and he said it was still 7 miles away!! After much deliberation (about 5 seconds), we decided it just wasn't worth riding 30 miles to get somewhere the bus would take us the next day. Later we found out that there are 2 Wal-Marts and we had gone the wrong way and were only accidentally headed toward the second store.

We headed to Publix, a grocery store chain down here whose name is really to easy to massacre. (I'm sure you see where that's headed...). Picked up a few items there. Still like Albertson's better. Hope there is one in Miami when we do our pre-Bahamas mega-provisioning.

By the time we got back to the boat, we were pretty tired. We rested up until happy hour and then went to the Riverside Grill, which we had heard had good prices. Not so! Cans of Coors Light were going for 2.75!! We can buy a can at the store for like 75 cents. The mozzarella sticks were great (homemade), but we left before further budgetary damage was done.

Afterwards, we made for bourbon chicken and rice for dinner. Yet again, we are honing our recipe to perfection. It turned out really well and we spent the rest of the evening listening to football on the satellite radio and went to bed early.

Monday, November 08, 2004 - Mooring Field, Vero Beach, FL - By Amy

After yesterday's marathon bike ride, we decided to take the bus this morning. It's a pretty nice system, and relatively popular, especially amongst old folk and retarded people. We fit right in. Caught the 8:05 and headed for Wal-Mart and ended up picking up all kinds of miscellany--yes, the budget is in real trouble this month.

We were hungry after we got everything unloaded, so Thomas made fried fish nuggets out with the rest of our mackerel. They were huge and quite good. It was a basic beer and flour batter with some pepper for taste. They were much better with lemon juice. Thomas liked the mackerel better fried than grilled; I'm split on the issue.

Next up was laundry and a mega-swapping of books. My goal was to drop off twice as many books as I picked up. The selection was pretty poor, so for probably the first time, I found this goal easy to meet.

The afternoon was spent with basic cleaning and boat work. One of the fishing rods is acting up a bit, but Thomas has a temporary solution until we can get a part. The intention was to have steak fajitas for dinner, but we may have a fish appetizer, as Thomas just caught a couple of small mystery fish, maybe 9-10 inches, off the back of the boat.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004 - Mooring Field, Vero Beach, FL - By Tom

Another day in the bug infested marches of Vero Beach. This is by far the worst place we've been as far as bugs are concerned.

This morning we caught the public (free) bus from the marina into town to check on some Bahamas charts at West Marine. Unfortunately, this is a West Marine Express and they don't carry charts. Yeah, ok. Bozo.

We have pretty much worked out the plans for our impending departure from this country. We are going to try and rent a car here in Vero for a day to do our last provisioning run and then head down to Lake Worth (Palm Beach) to wait for a weather opening to cross over.

For the uninitiated, to get from Florida to the Bahamas, one has to cross the Gulf Stream. The Gulf is basically a fast moving river that exists in the middle of the ocean. At places the current is said to run at almost 5 knots. This basically means that we need cooperative weather to get across. I guess we'll cross that bridge (or river) when we get to it.

Amy mentioned my fishing prowess yesterday. I did indeed increase the ongoing calculation of the FPB (or the Fish Per Buck ratio) to the tune of 4, 9 - 10 inch something or other. I have provided photographic evidence and maybe someone out there can help me with the identification. They kind of resemble that fish Dory in Finding Nemo and don't tell my little nieces, but they were pretty tasty.

Anyway, it finally rained today for the first time in like 2 months. We spent the day hanging out in the sailors lounge and I worked some more on my Sailboat Log application. I think we will be ready for distribution sometimes in early December.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - Mooring Field, Vero Beach, FL - By Tom

This morning started off with our ferret feeling under the weather. I know this because at around 7 am she was practicing her distance capabilities in the projectile vomiting arena. More information than you wanted I am sure, but I need to share my pain.

Anyway, we were up in time to take showers before we rushed off to catch the 8:05 am bus(free) to Walmart. We have decided to try and do our last major re provisioning sans rental car, so we will be making several trips to town on the short bus.

Speaking of the short bus, remember when we were in school and we made fun of the people who road the short bus? All this time, I thought it was because they were retarded or something. Turns out they must have just lived in the ghetto, because with the exception of the other sailors on board, everyone else looked like they were auditioning for a part in Boys in Da Hood 3.

The trip was so traumatic that we had to stop at Apple Bee's for a beer and wings before I was able to compose myself to deal with the shopping at hand.

Properly fortified, we proceeded to Wally's World (Walmart), were we bought all of the dry provisions that we need for 4 - 6 months in the Islands. It took quite a while and the return trip to the marina was just as much fun as the trip out.

We lugged our 200 lbs of dry goods back to the dinghy, then back to the boat and stored them according to genus and species in both bilges, after which we spent an hour or two cleaning up the boat.

We had cocktails on board and hid out from the rain. Neither of us was really hungry, so we had cheese and crackers for dinner and watched Finding Nemo, again.

Thursday, November 11, 2004 - Mooring Field, Vero Beach, FL - By Amy

Another expensive day on the books. We got the first bus in the morning. Because it was a holiday, that was 9 AM. Mercifully, the holiday meant that the bus also ceased operations early, meaning that we could make only one trip today. I fear that we'd have been broke after a second trip.

We tried to hit Radio Shack for a cheap, 300 watt inverter. The one I bought at a truck stop during our big rig days is actually more efficient than our expensive 1000 watt boat inverter, so we have used it to charge the cell phone, computer, etc. Or we did until it gave up the ghost. Alas, Radio Shack was hurricane victim and our search for inversion was unsuccessful.

Other items were better. We picked up several of these weird no-fridge-necessary packages of salt-cured bacon. It's pretty decent and increases our meat options when we're away from stores. Yesterday we had gotten a fridge-free ground beef, Mexican style. Tried that in tacos and it was decent.

It was a pretty light haul until we got to the liquor store. $350 later, we have enough whisky, gin, and "good" box wine (we'll see...) to sink the boat. We were quite a spectacle trying to pack all that stuff into various duffles to get it home on the bus.

Thomas finally installed the ammeter's we have been carrying around for three months in the spiffy panel that his dad and brother-in-law made for us. It looks cool, even without flames.

For happy hour, we headed back over to Riverside and were actually frugal...probably worn out from the rest of the day's spending. Frank and Nancy from the Julie K dinghied up to the bar just as we were getting ready to leave. We invited them to stop by after they grabbed dinner. Our mooring buddies, Ray and Peggy on Jellicle Cat, were back on their boat by the time we returned, so we invited them over as well.

Thomas made pizza crisps for hors-d'oeuvres and they went over well. I believe a good time was had by all, even if the evening ended at a cruising-friendly 8 PM.

P.S. - I bought a book at the dive shop called Fishes of Florida and using it was able to determine that the fishes in question are Pigfish. (Tom)