Cocoa Beach to Vero Beach, FL

Today:    54 miles, 7 hours, ICW St. M 951

Total:     1183.2 miles, 158.5 hours

Sunrise from Cocoa Beach

     As I prepped to get underway, Pete walked Bailey.  The parking lot is full, cars are looking for additional parking, hundreds of people (including kids) are around a carnival like atmosphere across the street and it is only 6:45 am!.  Today is the Half Marathon/10 K Charity Walk/Run.  The race kicked off at 7 am.  It is popular not only for being on Thanksgiving Weekend, but it runs though some special neighborhoods; closing popular streets off from traffic. We left the dock at 7:10 and by the time we were 5 miles south, we could still see hundreds of runners and walkers along the road along the western shore of the ICW.

     Today, we went through the San Sabastian area of the Indian River.  This area is populated with small waste islands that were created out of the dredged channel.  Many of the islands had boats beached, with people swimming, fishing or just wading in the shallow waters.  A few even had tents pitched on the islands.  What a cool place to camp! One sailboat, who was motor sailing through here at 4 mph, is the kind to give us good sailors a bad reputation.  He told a couple of power boats that he had the right of way as he was sailing!  Just south of there is Wabasso Beach.  It is a beautiful, windy river area, with interesting homes lining its shores.

SV RESOLVE on her mooring
with a boat already on her port side

    We slid beside SV RESOLVE, in the mooring field just after 2 PM. We will be rafting with them overnight. Here in Vero, they raft 3 boats per mooring.  Another boat is on the port side.  Once secure, Debbie started feeding Bailey some special treats, well a little more then some! Bailey was besides herself with silliness while trying not to slip overboard in her excitement.

Bailey's attention solely
 on Debbie with her treats

      We talked about cruising this year.  Usually they head over to the Bahamas after provisioning in Marathon, but this year they will be skipping Marathon.  Unsure if all the sunken boats have been removed, most of the small shops are closed and the Food Lion has raised prices now that Winn Dixie is closed for the better part of a year. Instead, they will probably jump from West Palm or Rodrigues Key.  They will again stay in the Abacos and Exumas due to Mike’s mom’s health.

      Jon picked up around 4:15 at the dinghy dock.  We then headed back to Jon and Marilyn’s new home here in Vero Beach.  We sat out in the lanai, laughing and catching up. After some hors d’oeuvres, we returned inside to have Marilyn’s delicious chicken enchilada dinner. For desert, I made an apple cheese torte. Good fun, yummy food and great friends.  A totally enjoyable evening. 

~~~ /) ~~ K & P