Vero Beach is living up to its nickname, Velcro Beach. Boats continue to flood into the mooring field, and we find ourselves rafted up at our mooring ball with one or two other boats at any given time.
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| The busy mooring field at Vero Beach |
It’s a great way to get to know your neighbors up close and personal, and in one instance that includes one neighbor’s mixed Siamese cat that seems to know we are “cat-friendly” people. It is strange to wake up on a boat to the sound of meows outside the portholes – “please come out and pet me”. We stay through Thanksgiving to enjoy the huge cruisers’ gathering for the holiday, and the festivities are worth the wait. No one is going to leave hungry as there is turkey aplenty along with a huge selection of side dishes brought by all the boats. We help with the set up and claim a table out on the patio, under the swaying palm trees with a view of the harbor, quite a contrast from the typical Thanksgiving setting. Afterwards, everyone lingers until sunset, entertained by a local popular guitar player accompanied by several other talented musicians from the visiting boats.
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| Thanksgiving dinner cruiser style |
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| And some darn good music to follow |
Our plan is to leave the ICW at Fort Pierce and head out into the Atlantic, sailing along the coast until just south of Miami. This southern part of the ICW has many bridges that only open on limited schedules, so it is slow going inside while you await bridge openings. Unfortunately, the weather is not cooperating, and we find ourselves awaiting a safe weather window. We’ve been in Vero for fifteen days, our longest layover of our trip. Thanksgiving is past, and we begin to see Christmas decorations and hear carols; all seem out of context when it is sunny and in the 80’s. With the exception of voracious no-see-ums, it’s been a pleasant stay, the beach is beautiful and we even enjoy Sunday brunch out with other cruisers at a café along the water.
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| The beautiful beach at Vero - just a short bike ride from the boat |
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| Not a bad view for Sunday Brunch |
We’ve made many new friends as Happy Hour has become an art form here. But, it’s time to move on.
We finally get our weather window and a sizable group leaves with us for the final leg south. With a passage of approximately 24 hours, we time our departure to insure that we will arrive at our destination in daylight. It’s a beautiful day and just as we make our turn east to exit the Fort Pierce Inlet, we see two dolphins and a pelican harassing one another with the pelican actually landing briefly on one of the dolphins. It is quite a show and distracts us from our task of raising sails in close quarters. The ocean is relatively flat with pleasant winds out of the northwest, and we scoot along with speeds over 7 knots about 3 miles off the shore. The parade of south Florida towns with their beaches and high rise condos dots the shoreline. We witness a beautiful sunset and enjoy the sailing until the wind suddenly kicks up and the seas become quite confused. In our running lights we see flying fish leaping from our bow wake, our boat speed drops dramatically, and the water temperature goes up. We have mistakenly veered into the Gulf Stream in the process of avoiding a freighter and have broken the cardinal rule of Gulf Stream sailing - never enter the stream when you have wind with a north component as the wind versus current phenomena results in some unpleasant conditions. A change of course is dictated and after reefing and heading back towards shore, the rest of the night becomes a non-event. The only casualties are two dead flying fish we find on deck the next morning.
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| One Gulf Stream casualty on Exuberant's deck |
Dawn sees us off Fort Lauderdale and shortly thereafter off Miami.
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| Miami from off shore in the morning |
We make our turn to shore just south of Key Biscayne to drop anchor off No-name Harbor. In 26 hours we have covered 132 nm and saved ourselves several days of motoring down the ICW, to say nothing of all the headaches associated with the bridges.
No-name Harbor is part of Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park, a place we had visited several years ago with our trimaran sailboat. The harbor tends to get packed so we choose to anchor just outside with the island giving us excellent protection from north and east winds, to say nothing of the gorgeous vistas of Miami to the north and Biscayne Bay National Park to the south.
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| The view towards Miami from Exuberant |
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| Exuberant anchored off Key Biscayne - we are the sailboat with one mast |
We can easily dinghy in to the park to enjoy its bike trails through the tropical hammock and spectacular beach on the Atlantic side which rates as one of Dr. Beach’s top ten beaches in the United States.
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| The Ibis family has reserved this picnic table in the park. |
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| The Atlantic beach at Cape Florida |
A large working lighthouse graces the southern tip of the Key and is open to the public, or at least to those with the energy to climb to the top.
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| Cape Florida Lighthouse - 109 steps to the top!! |
This southern tip of Key Biscayne was originally home to tribes of pre-Columbian Indians. They were ousted by pirates that prowled these waters, and then the area became a staging point for the Underground Railroad, transporting runaway slaves to the safe haven of the Bahamas. It’s beauty and history are now protected from development through the efforts of Bill Baggs, once the editor of the Miami Herald. The park, itself, has two outdoor restaurants, and we treat ourselves to a couple of meals out with another boat which is traveling with us. We can leave the park on our bikes to go into the city of Key Biscayne. It is one of the cleanest, tidiest towns we’ve ever seen. The landscaping in both public and private spaces is meticulously maintained, and the streets look clean enough to eat from. The high rise condos and mansions start in the low millions and go up from there. The local population is mostly Hispanic with roots from Cuba, South, and Central America. It is unusual to hear English spoken.
The Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway is commonly known as the Magenta Line as this is how it is depicted on our charts and chartplotter. It stretches from Norfolk, VA to Key West, FL, a distance of 1243 statute miles. We are exiting it at milepost 1096 as it is here, at Key Biscayne, that we are staging for our crossing of the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. It has been an amazing journey so far, sometimes taxing our energy and patience as we find ourselves challenged by necessities of daily living, weather, and navigation. Our boat has provided us with safe, reliable transportation and comfortable quarters. We have seen incredible landscapes and witnessed a variety of wildlife in its native habitat. We have seen a portion of our country’s history and culture from a unique perspective. We have made many new friends who share our love of boating. They have given us help and encouragement during the difficult times, and shared our joys during lighter moments – we are indeed very fortunate.
