I first discovered Vero Beach Municipal Marina 20 years ago while helping deliver a sailboat from the Chesapeake to Miami. After four days at sea, and four days of constant seasickness, we finally pulled in at Cape Canaveral and motored south to Vero Beach. The marina was like an oasis, lush and green, well kept, and the moorings were well protected from tropical storms. I remember it as being the highlight of the trip, and I vowed that someday I would be back. It took a while, but I'm finally here!
John Holland unhooks the boat while the forklift operators
decide how they will offload it.
John Holland towed the boat from the Chesapeake this past week, arriving at Fort Pierce, Florida, on Wednesday. The forklift operator put the boat on an outside maintenance rack where I did some cleaning and made some upgrades. I intend to keep the boat here at Taylor Creek Marina in indoor storage for the hurricane season which lasts from June through the end of November.
Solar panel on the cooler.
One of the upgrades was a solar panel mounted on top of the cooler. The wires run from the solar panel, through a deck fitting, to a charge controller mounted in the lazarette locker. Over the winter I had the marina in Maryland connect the two air-conditioner batteries in the lazarette to the house battery in the engine compartment. I never used the air-conditioner unless I was connected to shore power anyway, so the two batteries were just adding weight and taking up space. By connecting them to the house battery, my house storage capacity was tripled. The solar system should provide enough power to light my anchor light, run the bilge pump, and keep my laptop and iPhone charged. We will see if it all works to plan as I intend to stay at the slip in Vero Beach for a month without shore power.
Lil' Green Tug at the Vero Beach City Marina.
The two hour trip up the Indian River Lagoon was uneventful. The river is wide and scenic even though I needed to stay in the deep water confines of the Intracoastal Waterway channel.
After the busy weekend, I intend to ask the Harbormaster if I can keep my inflatable dinghy at the dinghy dock. I have a Maryland-style crab trap I'd like to set and check using the dinghy.
Mansions on the ICW north of Vero Beach Yesterday was blustery and chilly, with winds out of the north at a steady 17 knots. It was the day I decided to head north from the Vero Beach City Marina on the Indian River (also known as the Indian River Lagoon and forming a part of the Intracoastal Waterway) to Sebastian, Florida. It's a short, 14 mile trip. The charts show the channel meandering through mangrove islands, but just north of Vero Beach it passes by beautiful mansions on the barrier island to the east, estates you never see driving north on highway A1A past the high concrete and hedge fences, past the gated communities. There were several pods of porpoise, there were cormorants coming up in front of the boat with wiggling fish in their beaks which they flipped around until the head was pointing down their throats and then down-the-hatch so to speak, and a manatee, my first sighting of one. It was a dark grey hulk just below the surface. I'm not entirely sure that&
Rosborough rf-246, "Blue Heron" I write this seated aboard my new boat, "Blue Heron", a 2008 Rosborough RF246. Living aboard Lil' Green Tug since last December has been a delight, so much so that I've decided to move full-time to Florida and stay aboard here in the winter months. I wanted something with more room and also more open ocean capability. The Rosborough has twin 115-hp Suzuki 4-stroke outboard engines and moves the boat along at a 14-18 knot cruise speed. I will be planning trips to the Bahamas, something the Ranger Tug 21ec wasn't designed to do. So Lil' Green Tug is for sale. She is listed with Wefings Marine and located in Eastpoint, Florida, in the Florida panhandle. The broker is Marc Grove (cell: 850-653-5950). If you think you might want to continue the adventure aboard Lil' Green Tug, give him a call! I'm not sure if I will be blogging about the Rosborough. There was just something poetic about the Ranger Tug 21ec t
Condo in Vero Beach, Florida. In Indiana it's a chilly 46F degrees. Fall leaves are turning yellow, red and orange. Winter will soon be in the air, and streets and sidewalks will soon be coated with snow and ice! But here in the South it's hard to imagine all that. I have made my long-planned escape from the Mid-West winter to Vero Beach, Florida. Here it's a pleasant 78F degrees with a nice breeze blowing through the open condo windows. The plan is to take Lil' Green Tug out of storage in Fort Pierce next week and put her on a maintenance rack to wax the hull. The black water holding tank needs some attention. I'm not sure how to clean it other than to fill it with fresh water and bleach. But what to do then? I can't discharge the tank while I'm on the rack, and I shouldn't do it while underway. I want to discharge the water and bleach through the overboard hose line since there is some residual sewage in there causing an odor. The odor isn'
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