Florida Farrago #2

Life by the bridge is no so bad. This was a pleasant sunset on a clear evening. Many days the bow has been pointed north which means that the cockpit faces the bridge. It has been interesting to people watch the bridge. There are a surprising number of folks going across the bridge .... not in cars, perhaps because the weather is cooler now. Most people, from the way the dress and the way they move, are exercising, the majority running, some walking, very few on bicycles; women outnumber men by 3:1 or more. I'm guessing that things change in August. Neither Carol or I have been inspired to demur on riding the bus in favor of walking.

So, we remain in Vero Beach, waiting. Waiting for a weather window, which will not come for at least two more days; waiting for news from the Ft. Lauderdale Municipal Marina that they have a slot, somewhere, that will accommodate the boat. It's not so bad; as Milton said, "They also serve who only stand and wait." He must have owned a boat, too.

But life has not been dull. The other night we had nothing particular to do. Seeing the lights on at a nearby baseball field, we decided to dinghy over top watch the game. No game, just practice; back to the dinghy we went. As is our wont, I got in first and got the motor going; Carol, as is her wont, released the line securing the dinghy to the dock and started her unique butt-shuffle to slither into the dinghy .... first her feet, which in this case only pushed the dinghy farther from the dock. Since she had released the line there was no way to bring the dinghy closer, so it kept moving away, feet on the dinghy, hands on the dock, and her large center of gravity hanging in the balance. Being weak in the arms, the balance only lasted a nonce and down she went, the rest of her following her large center of gravity into the water which was deep but not too cold. She still had her hands on the dock, so no problems there, embarrassing but not dangerous. She does work very hard to keep me amused. The good news ..... this time she did not deep six the cell phone as she did in Norfolk, VA, saltwater dunkings and electronics being incompatible.

Part of the reason that we are still here is weather coming through, which just hit the mooring field. It was interesting. In about a minute the wind shifted from south to north, literally whipping the boat around; the wind velocity doubled and the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees, maybe more.

The last couple of days have not been great .... cool, cloudy. Since this has not been conducive to projects, Carol and I have just stayed on the boat with books in our hands. We'e are going through way too many books here, imperiling our supply for later in the trip. Most marinas have a common room with the typical 6-ft. x 3-ft. RTA bookcase or two. The informal protocol is bring some, take some. There are always some books that never get taken, e.g. book #2 of the really silly science fantasy trilogy about something or another. But here in Vero Beach there has been a fairly high turnover of boats coming and going, those coming into the marina having new fodder for the mix. So we have been breaking even in numbers. Cruisers have very low standards of what they will read, the basic requirement being that the book, for most, be in English. Today I was plundering the shelves and saw the spine of a book which I had read this week and had no specific memory of any detail of plot or character. That was, I hope, a failing of plot and character on the part of the author and not a senior moment for me. (When in doubt, blame the other guy)

While we were at Les & Jean's the issue of real estate came up, as it must in this part of the country. St. Lucie county has been hit very hard. I spent some time on Zillow.com looking at housing in the area and was stunned. A person can buy a 3/4 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage house of 1,500~1,800 sq. ft. for less than $100,000, well below the replacement cost. And, there are lots of choices, no need to stand in line. The recovery has not yet hit this part of Florida.

I suppose that every boat has a story and some, behind the story, have a dream. People watching in the marina is interesting .... sometimes you just cannot imagine what the story is, unlike ours, which is very pedestrian.

This boat, 46-ft. is probably the largest monohull here. I don't think that there is an archetype physiognomy for sailboating, but there can be surprises. The two people aboard are older than us and are both way heavier than most people we see coming off dinghies in marinas. If you had to guess you'd say a motor vessel, not a sailboat.

This boat pulled in a few days ago, 48-ft. long, probably the largest boat here on a mooring ball. Carol was aghast that the couple is in no danger of seeing 40 for several years. She couldn't construct a scenario where people that young had both the time to cruise and money to do it on a boat like this.

Tomorrow is Sunday. We plan on heading south to Ft. Lauderdale and arriving on Monday. Barring that, if the weather has not calmed down, we'll go Monday and arrive Tuesday.