Vero Beach - Part 1

--Blogpost written by Bob

This blogpost covers our first five days in Vero Beach, through Saturday.  More on Vero Beach will be included in our next blogpost, Vero Beach - Part 2.

Tuesday, December 5 

We slept soundly last night—our first night on a mooring in Vero Beach.  After waking up with the sun, we had a somewhat leisurely breakfast on board—Maggie’s delicious and healthy (low-carb) ham and zucchini quiche. 

It is common to have two or three boats share a mooring ball
in Vero Beach. We are now sharing a mooring ball with
a nice couple from Virginia on their sailboat, Liberty.

The big repair job ahead of me was nagging at me. By 8 AM, I was pulling apart the binnacle to replace the broken transmission cable—it runs from the transmission (which is located just forward of the engine, up the pedestal, to the hand controls near the binnacle (the general area where the ship’s compass is mounted).

At this point we had a lot of difficulty getting
the cable clamp assembly out of
the steering pedestal.

It took a lot of grunting, thought breaks, looking on-line for helpful hints, and swearing but we got the old cable out, the new cable in place, and everything back together and working by noon. (I can assure you that there is no need to loosen the chain but turning the wheel all the way to port, like Edson recommends in their instructions, makes slightly more clearance to remove the cable clamp assembly. This proved to be an invaluable helpful hint!)  As I reassembled the pedestal, I used TefGel on all the fasteners to prevent corrosion that occurs when stainless steel fasteners are used to connect aluminum components.  I also sanded off an area of the cabinetry where the transmission cable vibrated against it, causing  wear of the cable cover--this is where the failure occurred.

We took much needed showers and then went out for lunch.  After lunch, I started the vacuum extractor to remove the engine oil and then proceeded to changeout the air fan for the head discharge air line. (You may recall that I decided to change the fan to one with 50% higher capacity.)  By the time I changed out the head’s fan, the oil extractor was finished and I proceeded to add new oil. (The current engine hours are 592, 8 hours before the 100-hour interval where the engine oil needed to be changed.)  I also checked the transmission fluid and documented all the maintenance in the maintenance log.  By this time, it was 4 PM and time for happy hour.  We spent the entire day on boat maintenance!


We started our tracking of wind directions in anticipation of our gulf stream crossing to the Bahamas.  Since we have 1-1/2 days to travel to West Palm Beach, we expect to make our crossing on about December 11th or 12th if wind direction proves satisfactory--we can't have winds with a northern component, otherwise the seas are very rough.

Today, winds are out of the east at 
15 knots (the orange color).

Wednesday, December 6

Maggie will be visiting her friend, Claire, in Sarasota tomorrow and Friday. Since we are down to one full water tank, we decided to top off our diesel and water tanks before she leaves.

We have already received most of the packages we had sent here but one remained outstanding—it arrived today.

The sun is very bright and it is getting hot already this morning. A cold front is forecasted to arrive on Saturday, bringing rain. Looking at the extended weather forecast, next Friday, December 15, with light southwesterly wind, looks like a good weather window to cross the Gulf Stream. We have 1-1/2 days to travel on the ICW before getting to West Palm Beach where we will start our crossing. We will be monitoring this possible weather window.

s/v Rainy Days on Mooring #2 at
Vero Beach City Marina

Today, we purchased cat food and cat litter for our time in the Bahamas. I also picked up some engine oil for the next oil change (which will probably be somewhere in the Bahamas).

Thursday, December 7

Maggie drove to Sarasota this morning and dropped me off near the beach to get breakfast at a local favorite cafe called Cravings. I walked back to the marina, a little over a mile after having breakfast. 

When I got back to the boat, I ordered two new swivel clasps for the cockpit lockers after finding identical replacements online but constructed from more suitable material (316 stainless steel).  I then tried to tackle the problem I’m having with the back-up VHF radio, narrowing the problem down to the antenna since I can only receive one weather channel (4) that is very close to Vero Beach (Melbourne).  The back-up VHF uses the masthead antenna—it shares the masthead antenna with our AIS receiver.  The AIS receiver seems to work fine but it may not require much of an antenna. I may have to go without the back-up VHF until we get back to Maryland in the spring.  (Most cruisers don’t even have a back-up VHF radio, so I don't feel that I'm taking a big risk.)

Our back-up VHF is located in our navigation station
while our primary VHF is located in the
cockpit--both radios are identical.

I tried to sneak up on several pelicans to get a good photo
but once one is alerted, they all get
anxious and fly off.

I made an appointment to get heath certificates for our cats—it’s at 4 PM on Tuesday. (This will assure us that the cats can come back to the U.S. with us.) So, we’ll be here in Vero Beach (with a rental car) at least through Tuesday, December 12.

Friday, December 8

Zippo Outdoor
Utility Lighter

It has been very difficult for me to keep up with the day of the week for this entire trip since all the days are generally the same for us.  Maggie is still in Sarasota today but will be coming back to the boat lSaturday morning.

It rained pretty hard last night.  I got up in the middle of the night and closed all the hatches.  I left our outdoor utility lighter (shown at left) out in the cockpit (after lighting the grill for dinner last night) and it wouldn’t light this morning. Since it is showing a lot of wear, I ordered two replacements from Amazon for two-day delivery.

Last night, my camera was left precariously close to the open companionway hatch—fortunately, it didn’t suffer any ill effects. (Last year, my DSLR camera succumbed to moisture damage near Charleston and I had to replace it.)

Our weather window for crossing the Gulf Stream has now moved from Friday to Saturday, December 16.  We will continue to monitor this weather window and leave Vero Beach about 2 or days previous to the acceptable weather window.  To cruisers, Vero Beach is nicknamed "Velcro Beach" because once you arrive, you find all kinds of reasons not to leave.  What better reason than a delayed weather window?

The best way to winterize an outboard motor
is to move it to warm weather.

Saturday, December 9

Thunderstorms came through the mooring field at 5:30 AM and the rain continued throughput the morning.  The weather forecast calls for temperatures dropping down to 41 tonight and 39 degrees tomorrow night here in Vero Beach FL!  Yes, it is not supposed to get that cold here!  (This makes my caption in the previous photo seem premature.)

It rained all morning and it is supposed to get cold tonight.

Our weather window for next Saturday still looks good but we want to make sure that both our weather apps agree on the expected wind conditions as crossing time approaches--more on this in our next blogpost.

This afternoon after a great lunch at Fishack in Vero Beach, we shopped for our non-perishable grocery items for our Bahamas excursion.  Note to self: NEVER go to Walmart on a Saturday before Christmas.  The perishable items we will buy at PUBLIX early in the week.

Stay tuned for more of our adventure in Vero Beach...


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