2007.04.13 Vero Beach FL

Friday the thirteenth!!!! Good thing we are not superstitious ….

We stayed at Vero Beach as planned …. Pretty uneventful… I went for a short walk and saw some beautiful Spanish moss hanging from live oak trees, this is a very typical southern US type of vegetation and brings Scarlet O’Hara to mind, sorry I did not have my camera with me….I was only going to check out wifi availability and got carried away….I am always sorry when I don’t have my camera with me and am usually told “you don’t need to take IT…”

We had a nice little supper in the cockpit and went to bed early in preparation for a long trek the next day….. David as usual is a mean driving machine whether at the wheel of a car or the helm of a boat, he can go on for 8,10, and 12 hours and stays concentrated and focused… never complains and does not seem to get tired…. I need to helm when he needs to go below and with all the tea I feed him it’s amazing he does not need relief from the helm more often !!!!

I spend the day doing everything from cleaning…. Yesterday I did quite a nice job outside, to cooking and tidying up…I also keep the logbook Tony gave us as well as talk to bridge masters etc, not much need of my help with navigation except today when we went through a few very shallow spots…..alway the risk of going aground!

I am now starting to get Soli ready for decommissioning, although the food stores have gone down drastically, there still remains things to stow for the summer months that we will be away…. BAY LEAVES are the magic ingredient…. All the dry goods are put into Ziplock bags with bay leaves and then into a large plastic bin we were given in West End ….apparently little beasties do not like them!!!!!

Talking about the less appetizing fauna in these parts….I found a water cockroach on the deck this morning as I was taking the fenders in…I rapidly stepped on it and got a juicy green stain on the deck…..David said that they love dark places so I got thoroughly paranoid and removed the covers from all the fenders waiting for a whole army to come out but the whole thing was for naught,,,, there was only the one …but at least now I know for certain!!





Still on the local fauna… this morning, in Titusville Harbour, we were treated to the visit of a whole family of manatees … we had seen signs forbidding the feeding of manatees and GIVING THEM WATER!!! I still do not understand this …they seem to love fresh water, so this morning as I was filling up the tanks I let the hose spill in the harbour for a while and then I heard this funny noise at the bow… I could not believe my eyes, there were FIVE of the most gentle, slow moving, huge creatures around Soli… out came the camera but they were so close and so large I could not get a shot of a whole manatee….

They are so sweet and gentle they were kissing Soli, kissing each other and looking at us ….I actually was able to caress one on her back…very thick skin, sort of like an elephant’s with algae growing on it…I can’t believe she felt my touch through that thick skin, but next thing I knew she rolled over on her back and exposed a lovely soft light colored belly for me to scratch…..








There was a baby, about five or six feet long, and it kept close to its mother ,,,,,they appear to kiss …they are probably eating the algae off each other’s backs.. they certainly did a good job on Soli’s water line.



We are now in Daytona Beach at Halifax Harbour Marina and will probably wait out some bad weather predicted for this weekend in comfort and safety.

Good night!