Thanksgiving in Titusville and onto Vero Beach

Titusville was to be our next stop and since we had been running everyday for several days we decided to take a break for the Thanksgiving holidays. The Titusville municipal marina was having a special of pay for two days get the third day free. Hummmmm, free is always good in our book so we took advantage of it and docked for three days enjoying the availability of long hot showers and of course catching up on some laundry.Above is Klabara & Georgia E following us as we had just passed under the Haulover Canal right before Titusville

Everyone took advantage of the water and used oil drop off to do much needed oil changes and boat wash downs. This past summer we had stopped here for fuel on the way north but had anchored up instead of docking. So far as a ship store goes they have a fairly good selection and their prices are very reasonable. Plus the staff was friendly and helpful which is always a plus in our book. The manatees seemed drawn to this place and on any given day you would see several just lounging about or positioned next to a boat washing down hoping to get some fresh water runoff.
They afforded our Canadian buddy boater friends a close up look at something only seen in photographs or at a distance before. The sad fact is that a few of the manatees seen day after day were covered with scars caused from a too close of an encounter with a boat. One actually had an open wound that was severely swollen and looked to be very painful.Thanksgiving day we were picked up By Dawn & Harvey whom we had met in March in the Bahamas on board S/V Sovereign Swan. We traveled together from the Abacos through the Exumas until we parted company in June to head back to the states. Sadly about two weeks after they returned to the states Sovereign Swan was destroyed in a fire caused by a neighboring boat. They are both still very distraught as they had put so much love and work into her. She was a gorgeous boat and we have many fond memories of times on board. Dawn & Harvey were kind enough to drive to Titusville to pick us up and take us to their church where we joined other folks and boaters that had no family around. The spread was incredible and if you left hungry it was your own fault. No one was allowed to leave without hauling a plate or two back with them. After cleaning up Dawn and Harvey drove us back to the marina and joined us aboard Tybee Time for a nightcap.Dawn left us with an incredible rum cake that she had baked and it didn’t have much chance on our boat of hanging around for too long.
On Friday we decided to head to Eau Gallie where we anchored for a quiet evening, than onto Vero Beach the following day. Dirk and I had passed it last year as we had to make tracks north, but we had heard so many great things about this place that we wanted to make a stop for a couple days to re-provision and do some other odds & ends. I had heard they raft you with other boats on the mooring balls but I had only seen rafting while at anchor, this should be interesting….We were going to be separated all on different balls with different folks until we spotted an open ball. We were then redirected to all take that ball. Dirk and I picked up the mooring first and readied bumpers on both sides of the boat with some additional lines. Klabara came in second along our port side and we did a quick job of securing them and then set about the task of having Georgia E come along our starboard side. After about a half hour we were all secured to the mooring ball and all secured to each other. Here all of us buddy boaters rafted together, not too far to go when you want to visit.

We are situated very close to a mangrove isle where daily we have an osprey sit upon his or hers tree and feed upon its catch. While here so far we have had s/v Ultra yet again catch up with us and also s/v Snoopy stayed a few days which allowed us to play catch up with them. The last time we had seen them was when we were in Wilmington. We also have finally met Kathy & Earl from s/v Seeker which is a 39 foot O’day. We have talked for about a year on facebook but have never caught up with each other in person before. Great is this lifestyle.....We have also realized why they call Vero Beach Velcro Beach, it grabs hold of you and well, it doesn’t like to let go. What was supposed to be a few day stop here has turned out to be almost a month. This town is very cruiser friendly as the public bus comes right to the marina so you don’t have far to walk and has stops right outside Wal-mart doors as well as the mall, West Marine, and a lot of other places us cruisers need to go. Your only limited by what you can pack mule back on your body. I have found I can really carry a lot of weight when I have a problem deciding between on what I want and what I really need. We will have to rent a car here one time in order to get the heavy & bulky items, plus we need to get kitty to the vet for his health certificate signed for the Bahamas. Ah, the health certificate….That’s another story..Last year I made the mistake of waiting till the last minute and ended up paying $50.00 to fed- ex the info in and get the paper fed-exed back to me. This year I took care of sending the paper work in with my $10.00 processing fee in early. Come a month later I had not received anything so we phoned the office up and after a few calls they were able to locate our stuff saying we should have received it already. Hummmmm, so they said since we had not that they would fax it to us which they did. About a week and a half later I received the original paper work they sent postmarked the same day in which we called. Hummmm, I think someone dropped the ball on that one but no biggie, at least we have it now. Note to self, next time send it out early and pay the extra five bucks to have it faxed back. Maybe there won’t be any problems then. On another note, it has been very cold here. We actually dropped into the 20’s a couple nights in a row which unfortunately caused a fish kill. You know the water has to be cold to do that. We did end up buying a Mr. Heater which is a small portable propane heater designed to be used indoors. I have to say it has been a lifesaver as we have no heat when we are not on a dock. Were hoping that soon we can put it away and break the shorts back out. There has only been one good window for crossing over to the Bahamas lately and we elected not to take it instead waiting on the next one. Klabara also elected to stay but Georgia E had to take it as they had guest coming into Marsh Harbor over Christmas. A couple days later we heard from them as they made it to Green Turtle where they checked in. So now we sit, enjoy Christmas and hope that perhaps soon there will be a window opening up in order for us to make tracks ourselves. Till next time...