Thursday Nov 17, 2011 Vero Beach mooring ball

  Listening to the weather on NOAA, it sounded forbidding with strong NE winds tomorrow and rough on the ICW.  Hailing Katja and Geoff, we again agreed to go for the SE corner behind the causeway of the Melbourne bridge where we’d be protected from the NE.  Once on our way Ken checked the radar and a huge band of storms were 50 miles north of us and moving south.  I hailed Blue Planet to see what they wanted to do and we agreed to confer again after going through the Addison Bridge.

  Once past the bridge we hashed over possibilities.  We were getting a big push from the current and we could possibly go to Vero Beach even with our late start.  I called the marina to ask if there’d be a mooring ball for tonight and said we might be arriving late.  They would have one waiting for us, although we’d have to raft with another boat, making 3 on the mooring ball, which is norm for the busy Thanksgiving.  We agreed to confer again once near the Melbourne bridge. We’d pulled out the jib and were getting a boost from that, plus the boost from the current, so we agreed to go to Vero.  There would be no possibilities of anchoring, so it was a go, and we were hoping we’d be there before dark.  We hailed the marina a mile away and they told us our mooring and the boat we’d raft to, and we were able to pull in and get situated just as it turned dark.  Whew!  It was a long hard day sitting in that cockpit all day, reading a book, with the sun beating down!!