The first item to take care of this morning is to make a phone call to Vinny, the Yamaha man, to order a new impeller for the outboard. We end up having to buy a kit with the impeller included. Jesse and Ginny kindly give us a ride over to the dock to meet Vinny. Blair promptly gets to work on the outboard, but alas: there is another problem. We need a new gas line which we add to our list of necessities for this afternoon. Bert and Marlene Meadley from CBYC in Toronto (and also friends of Jan Hadfield's - small world) have a condo in Fort Pierce, Florida and have volunteered to pick us up and help us with any items we need to pick up. We don't find everything that we need but we do have a new gas line, groceries, wine, and a new digital TV antenna. The antenna is an experiment, but it seemed like a fun purchase.
It was a pretty rainy day - actually more like showers sweeping in and out. We had to time our dinghy ride back to the boat from the dock between the raindrops. We had a drink at the Riverside Cafe, at the foot of the bridge near the marina. We treated Bert and Marlene as a very small token of our appreciation for all their help. It was fun to hear their sailing adventure stories about their journey to the Bahamas without a chart plotter.
Once safely back aboard Odissea, Blair and I get to work hoisting the dinghy up and tying it down. Jesse and Ginny do the same on their boat, and we confirm our plans to head out to Stuart in the morning.
Surprise of all surprises, on our way back to the boat from the dock, we come upon Southern Cross IV (Andy, Isabella, and Max) on a mooring, rafted to another boat in the Vero Beach mooring field. They are having a Sirius satellite installation done on their boat. They wander over in their dinghy later after dark for a drink and we catch up about our adventures over the last week. We say goodbye to them once again at the end of the evening.
It has been a great mooring here in Vero Beach, and our earlier apprehension about rafting has proven to be unnecessary as we have ended up meeting Jesse and Ginny. We have been moored on the farthest mooring ball from the Marina dock and have watched the egrets and the herons fishing not more than 25 feet or so from our boat. There are plenty of manatee in the area, although we haven't seen any. They call this area "Velcro Beach" because apparently once you get here, it is hard to leave - you stick to it like velcro! I would have liked to have seen the beach close by, but we were so busy solving the outboard problem. Having said that, we are more interested in pushing ahead to Stuart where we can have access to internet, complete some mechanical type installations, and watch the weather for a window to the Bahamas.
It was a pretty rainy day - actually more like showers sweeping in and out. We had to time our dinghy ride back to the boat from the dock between the raindrops. We had a drink at the Riverside Cafe, at the foot of the bridge near the marina. We treated Bert and Marlene as a very small token of our appreciation for all their help. It was fun to hear their sailing adventure stories about their journey to the Bahamas without a chart plotter.
Once safely back aboard Odissea, Blair and I get to work hoisting the dinghy up and tying it down. Jesse and Ginny do the same on their boat, and we confirm our plans to head out to Stuart in the morning.
Surprise of all surprises, on our way back to the boat from the dock, we come upon Southern Cross IV (Andy, Isabella, and Max) on a mooring, rafted to another boat in the Vero Beach mooring field. They are having a Sirius satellite installation done on their boat. They wander over in their dinghy later after dark for a drink and we catch up about our adventures over the last week. We say goodbye to them once again at the end of the evening.
It has been a great mooring here in Vero Beach, and our earlier apprehension about rafting has proven to be unnecessary as we have ended up meeting Jesse and Ginny. We have been moored on the farthest mooring ball from the Marina dock and have watched the egrets and the herons fishing not more than 25 feet or so from our boat. There are plenty of manatee in the area, although we haven't seen any. They call this area "Velcro Beach" because apparently once you get here, it is hard to leave - you stick to it like velcro! I would have liked to have seen the beach close by, but we were so busy solving the outboard problem. Having said that, we are more interested in pushing ahead to Stuart where we can have access to internet, complete some mechanical type installations, and watch the weather for a window to the Bahamas.
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