We’ve now been in Vero Beach since Friday, and the wind it is a-blowing’. Although we’re tied up safely and all, wind is hell on outdoor pickleball. More on pickleball later.
We left Fort Pierce a tad cranky since we didn’t really need fuel but Carl had told Charlie (The Lower Place) that the volume price was $2.96 per gallon which is a great deal and then Charlie told us so we pulled around and topped off with 280 gallons and then the guy said that the price had gone up to $3.10 and Carl wasn’t working that day to clear things up. We didn’t blame Charlie even though he’s from Mississippi. Regardless, the Indian River portion of the ICW was pretty currenty coming north but we made it to the Vero Beach City Marina in time for a cloudy lunch.
Supposedly we’re now at the edge of the Space Coast, after having cruised the Emerald, Forgotten, Nature, Sun, Cultural, Paradise, Gold, and Treasure Coasts, as called by the locals. We’re not rocket scientists but this probably is called the Space Coast because of proximity to Cape Canaveral. In fact, it’s almost exactly 56 miles from the spot on the beach where we stood for about an hour in the cold to the launchpad where a Delta IV rocket was scheduled to launch at 6:56 p.m. We arrived at 6:30 to make sure the new GoPro would work. The western sun would light up the contrail beautifully. We’d have an awesome video. Launch moved back to 7:11? No worries. Doug started filming at 7:10. He held the GoPro up until his arm started aching. Dana started her phone but gave up quickly when nothing happened. Long story short, after several delays we walked back to the boat. The sun set. They indeed launched the rocket—and we even tried to videotape it—but mostly it was just a minute or so of a small light moving through a dark sky too faintly to photograph. Maybe they should call Vero Beach the Worthless Video Coast.
Saturday brought yet another Farmers’ Market, which was quite timely, because Dana REALLY needed a combo candle and skin moisturizer.
Saturday also brought David and Sherry—Doug’s friends from high school—down from Orlando. That put 40% of the Big Five on Misty Pearl for a few hours. It was great to catch up with them and nobody gossiped at all about other people from their small town outside of Chattanooga.
The marina is kind of secluded from the beachy stuff, but the streets along the way are way cool.
Given the orchid knowledge about which we’ve previously boasted, we even spotted a few up in the higher branches. It’s true that most everything grows in southern Florida.
It’s also true that around here it’s important to watch out for crab holes. We know that, because there are signs posted all around the marina.
So far we’ve seen neither crabs nor crab holes but at least we know enough to keep an eye out.
Vero Beach has so many courts that it should be called The Pickleball Coast. We Ubered over to a huge tournament. The professionals are really really good.
Today we wanted to go back for a clinic at Pickleball University. The website and sign were a bit ambiguous so we thought maybe only members were allowed. But the other places we found to play—including the courts at the nudist colony—were too far to Uber so we took a chance.
Things worked out great. We got the clinic and a private lesson. They suckered us into new paddles. Now we’re pot committed. We still suck, of course, but we’re committed.
The other thing is that we were docked for a couple of days beside Esmeralde. That’s the green American Tug we saw fresh out of the factory mold a couple of years ago and then just missed in Stuart. The tugs weren’t quite right for us but it’s a beautiful boat.
We’d planned to leave on Wednesday but it’s looking more and more like Thursday. Did we mention that it’s windy here?