Vero Beach  

We stayed in Vero Beach from the 13Jan until we had to head back north to St. Mary’s to lift off and meet Ed who would wanted to experience some sailing (and get away from Ottawa winter)

Vero (aka Velcro beach) is amazing for sailors. The City Marina has a large anchorage with access to dinghy docks, free buses that take you anywhere in the city for shopping or touring around. We borrowed Bob and Carol’s bikes and biked around the city. Remind me not to take David’s word that it’s only a 20 minute bike ride to Home Depot.  (3 hours later, I was exhausted, hot and dehydrated as we had bike in mid-day heat). 

The beach in Vero is amazing – clean, not busy , has areas that are lifeguard monitored and easy to access. There are a few restaurants overlooking the beach and some very posh shopping (I basically looked at the store windows as I could not afford a t shirt in one of those lol)

David and I learned to love PICKLEBALL and we played both on the street before the yacht club closed it down as residents don’t like to hear the constant wack of the paddles . So we moved to Very Beach Fitness Centre and for 6bucks you could play from 9 to 11:30 Mon Wed and Fri. We played several times there and it was amazing. Gary, would put you with people at your level. It’s a great workout and not too hard on joints. David and I will love to find a place to play in Canada. 

Our anchorage had tons of dolphins and manatees although the water was dark with tannins and the manatees were hard to see. We met many great people , Ron and Jethro (father and son),  our friends from NS  Gilles and Annik , Sienna and her parents from NS , Jack and Cindy from US and many many more that we visited on their boats and shared dinners with. 

I was also part of the Vero Beach Marina Cruiser’s Net. This is a short radio broadcast about 15 min long that started at 8:15 and would take place on channel 68 on VHF radio. I did the community announcements and others would do weather, happy hour advertisements from different restaurants and other information. I also would pick a trivia question for the day . They didn’t have a lot of people willing to do it so it was a way to help the sailing community of Vero beach.