Vero Beach to Cocoa, FL - February 21-26



Cool Change in Vero Beach.  Note the bicycle which is leaving rust all over the front deck.

Many people ask us what we can find to do on such a long trip.  If you know me (Colleen), you know I'm a bookworm and I've read untold numbers of books the past three-and-a-half months - some cerebral ones and many that are just "bubble gum for my brain."  Vero beach has an excellent local bookstore, Vero Beach Book Center on Indian River Blvd, and it's a place I would love to hang out in on a regular basis.  My book club back in North Carolina assigned me the topic of travel books so I've been trying to read several as I prepare to host the May meeting, leaning toward Florida and North Carolina books.  Two I've especially enjoyed are The Barefoot Mailman and A Walk in the Woods.  The first is a fiction-based-on-fact about mailmen who used to deliver the mail between Palm Beach and Miami before the state was settled.  They walked between the two cities via the beach - the interior of the state was pretty much impenetrable to anyone except the Seminole Indians at that time.  The second book is an entertaining true account of the author's attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail.  Another book I've read but wasn't so impressed with is Narrow Dog to Indian River.  This true account of a trip on the ICW of an English canal boat should have appealed to us as the boat traverses much of the same water we have seen. However, the author has a lot of trouble working up any enthusiasm for the people he and his wife and dog meet along the way.  That's a shame because our experience is that boat people are invariably friendly and helpful.


I don't recommend this one



This is very funny and interesting.

Our stay on the docks at Vero Beach was a welcome and restful luxury that we enjoyed for our last seven nights there.  We were a little intimidated, though, by the boats tied up around us.  See below.  Next to them, we looked like a dinghy.


The boat in front of us on the dock - a mere 95 feet long



The boat behind us in Vero.  Over 100 feet long

Our original plan was to leave Vero beach on Thursday the 24th, which promised to be a perfect cruising day - light winds and warm, sunny weather.  But.... Wayne woke up early that morning suffering from dizziness and nausea, pretty much unable to function at all.  I checked with the dockmaster to be sure we could stay another day and got the address of a walk in clinic.  It is very difficult to get Wayne to go to a doctor but he agreed to do this - a measure of just how bad he felt.  Before we left Wayne's brother, Howard showed up and said the emergency room was the place to go.  Wayne complied with his big brother's advice (Yippee!  He would not have let me drag him to an emergency room for anything) and we were off.  Thank you, thank you, Howard.

The problem was a fluid buildup in Wayne's inner ear, a relatively minor issue that could be controlled with some medication.  We got back to the boat, drugged him up and Wayne took to his bed for most of the day.  By Friday morning he was fully functioning and we fueled up, pumped out the holding tanks and were on our way.  The one day trip to Cocoa was breezy but mostly we had the wind pushing us along at a brisk 10 miles/hour.



There are "spoil islands" all along the ICW on the Indian River.  These are made of the dredged-up sand from digging out the waterway and, over the years, they have grown trees and bushes and beaches - serving as a wonderful destination for many of our family boating outings over the years.  We saw a lot of hurricane damage on them, though.

 One event was the highlight of our day - five dolphins decided to play for a while in our boat wake.  We watched, entranced, as they surfed our wake, then jumped and belly flopped to make a loud, purposeful "pop" as they landed in the water close to the boat.  We've seen lots of dolphins on this trip and are always captivated by them - they swim just close enough for us to have a good glimpse of their graceful movements through the water but are gone by the time we rush for a camera.  I've stopped even trying to catch them with a camera for fear I'll miss seeing their antics.

Approaching Cocoa and ready to call the dockmaster, we were startled to hear another boat named Cool Change calling in to approach the marina also.  We haven't seen this name on any other vessel but a large catamaran named Cool Change from Texas is indeed docked a short way from us here. 

The other Cool Change

Once we arrived in Cocoa we were delighted to meet up with some old friends.  Jim and Shaula are still members of the Central Florida Cruise Club, a group we boated with in Florida for 21 years.  The Cruise Club is here in Cocoa for an annual Mardi Gras celebration in Cocoa Village.  We joined the group for "docktails" Friday night and they were very welcoming.  We haven't cruised with them since we left Florida, almost thirteen years ago and we knew very few of the 30 or so people who were here.  It's great, though, to see that this group of boating enthusiasts who trailer their boats all over the state is still going strong after sixty years.  While we're here in Cocoa we'll also get to spend time with Roger and Marcy and Marla and Al.  We plan to stay for a week - enjoying the luxury of dock life!