No Particular Place To Go

We left our lovely anchorage by the dragon on Tuesday morning for the 40 mile run down to Vero Beach. As the wind was blowing briskly behind us, and there being no opening bridges on the route, it seemed the perfect opportunity to as they say, ‘unfurl some canvas.' So we set the spinnaker by itself, shut down the engine and shot off down the Indian River, keeping up with the other sailboats under motor. The channel eventually narrows such that we are again sailing down a runway of markers, all the while under spinnaker.

At Charleston, we had picked up a couple of pumpkins for a Halloween celebration, which by the way we missed, completely losing track of the days. Well one of the pumpkins had survived intact and was showing few signs of fatigue, sitting proudly atop the companionway under the dodger. But our spinnaker run proved its undoing. As we rounded one of the channel markers, the next mark took us well to windward. As we sheeted the spinnaker, heading up to stay in the narrow channel, the boat lurched suddenly over on its side in a strong gust. The force of gravity finally overcame the coefficient of friction from vegetable to deck from which the pumpkin jettisoned itself over the coaming and right down the hatch where it spit open on the cabin floor! Fortunately no cats were injured in this pumpkin massacre.

Soon thereafter, we doused the spinnaker as we had high hopes of pulling up to a waterway fruit stand called Jones Fruit Dock. But alas, the fruit dock was closed so we motored the final few miles to Vero. Upon our arrival, we met up with our friends from Oasis who are house sitting for their grandmother in Vero. Martin and Tracy, who cruise with the coolest bird ever, are living ashore while completing a minor refit of their boat. We ventured over to Granny's house for dinner and were roundly entertained by their little bird. The bird does what Martin calls bird boxing, where the bird will sit on your finger and go nose to nose. (It does not hurt).

As we will go no further until after thanksgiving, we've really been enjoying a relaxing pace in Vero. We are only 4 blocks from the beach and the city runs a free bus service that goes just about everywhere in town. Many cruising sailors have assembled here including some that we've met along the waterway. Rafted with us for several days were Brian and Susan on their Jeanneau 36 Starlight. Like us, they have as taken a break from corporate life at a relatively early age.

We may be on the verge of suffering from island fever, that terrible affliction of having way too much fun and getting too little done. One night we invited Brian & Susan and Martin & Tracy to the boat for some adventures in grilling. We've been experimenting with making pizza on the grill; not the store bought stuff either. Joyce does the whole Martha Stewart thing; making the dough from scratch. So despite the periodic rain, we cooked six rather good pepperoni pizzas on the grill. With a bit more practice, Joyce will be tossing and twirling those pizzas around like mad. Just hope the dough comes off the cabin top.

We've belatedly decided to upgrade our electrical system somewhat as power consumption becomes a constant point of monitoring, especially while at anchor for extended periods. Sailors of course seek to be fairly independent of the dock in order to enjoy some of the more pristine cruising grounds. As such, they need to match their ability to produce power with their consumption. We generally see three different ways of doing this, alone or in combination. We, like many others, rely strictly on our engine driven alternator to recharge our batteries each day. While this means we must run our engine every day to keep the batteries charged, we have to anyway as our refrigeration system is also engine driven. Others supplement their electrical generating capacity with wind generators or solar panels. Of course the wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine. We are rather more frugal than most using only about 15 amp hours a day while we've heard tell of some boats using ten times more. It is always interesting to see a crowded anchorage with the windvanes turning and humming like a bees nest. Then you know you've stumbled onto the cruising crowd.