S/V Sweet Liberty : On the road again – heading north! (And yes, we really are still alive!)

We did, in fact, decide to stay put in Vero Beach. It was just too nice and we really had accomplished the best plan, for us, for this winter's journey. We found sunny and warm (and sometimes – hot) weather to be in for the winter. Of course going to the Bahamas was supposed to be the goal but actually the two main maxims of our trip guided our decision. Safety and having fun. Vero Beach was a very safe place to be from a storm perspective with access to anything we might need for repairs, provisions and medical. Fun – we were having fun not having to worry about many factors involved with this year's Bahamas crossing factors. El Nino has provided some really nasty, strange, cold and windy weather this year. The Botulas caught perhaps the only good crossing since December! But we were concerned also about getting back. So we just stayed put! We were able to turn our weeks worth of payment into a monthly rate so our price per night on the mooring went from $15 to $12. We moved from being far away from the marina at the very north end of the mooring field (mooring #52) up much closer to the marina and dinghy dock. It was about half he dinghy ride which saved us a lot of gas seeing as we went to and from the land about four or more (as many as eight!) times a day.

We made a lot of new friends at Vero Beach Marina – including the marina staff. Gracie became somewhat infamous at the office, where we usually went each day. She knew exactly where they kept the doggie treats!!! We became good friends with a couple from Chesterfield, NH (Richard and Jeanny Aldrich) who owned a farm and have rented it out to have a sailboat and an adventure! Their boat had been called “8 is Enough” because between the two of them then had eight kids but they decided to change the name to “Imagine”. Rich is a professional carpenter – quite handy about the boat and Jeanny is a professional chef and nutritionist. She started the Wednesday night pot luck dinners which we participated in before our departure. (Note: they were also avid Survivor enthusiasts like ourselves so after dinner we hit the boaters lounge for our weekly dose of Survivior!)

By our third week at Vero we were also joined by Alan and Michelle Watson as well as Dan and Marcia Crouch, both having returned from the Bahamas and both from our yacht club in Groton, CT – Shennecossett! There were also no less than four other boats from Vermont in the anchorage! Small world eh?!

We had lot so fun in and around Vero Beach, which we came to find out the Vero Beacher's call Zero beach – land of the newly weds and nearly deads! Since we were not going any further south, we decided to rent a car for two days and spend a bit of time seeing the sights to the south. (Another of our reasons for staying in Vero is that we had come to find out that both Fort Lauderdale and Miami had become very boater unfriendly. The more south you went from Vero, the more difficult the cities were making it to anchor and get ashore, and with Gracie that was a necessity!) So we went to Fort Lauderdale for a day to join the spring breakers and made a planned stop in Forth Worth along the way where Luitgard and Wolfgang (our German friends on the Nordhavn 50) were still waiting for a window to cross to the Bahamas. We met them again and went out to lunch at a wonderful pizza place in South Palm Beach. We then continued down to Fort Lauderdale to accomplish three things: See Sailorman (a used marine warehouse), West Marine (which is their flagship store), and see the town and beach with all the crazy spring breakers! Mission accomplished! Vero to Fort Lauderdale is about a two hour drive. Day two of the car was for seeing all of Vero Beach and provisioning the heavy stuff like seltzer, water, beer, etc!

So after a month in Vero, we headed north again on Wednesday March 23^rd. We traveled all the way to Merritt Island, FL to met up again with Phil and Nancy Stewart and a repeat dinner at Alfredo's Paradiso for another outrageous Italian dinner! And then Thursday we went to Titusville and met up with Myles and Merja Cahoon who are our friends from Vermont who have a winter home in Leesburg, FL. Lots of theater discussions in the two days!! We wanted to get in to Titusville early because of the thunderstorms that were predicted to come through in the evening. And come through they did!! We had high winds and rain, lightening and thunder for several hours. This morning the weather indicated that we had had 4.5 inches of rain last night!! I have never seen it rain so hard ever before!

We decided to stay the day here in Titusville today because of thunderstorms this afternoon, which we had and plan to leave tomorrow for Daytona Beach.

I know that some of you thought we might have dropped off the edge of the earth – we haven't posted for so long. Time just got away from us and we were actually quite busy these last few weeks. A tour boat came through the harbor at Vero Beach and I heard the tour director say on the loudspeaker something to the effect of: “It is not a vacation, it is a lifestyle!” Cruising like this really is a lifestyle!

We took some harbor tours in Vero Beach - Gracie is always on the bow of the dinghy!