Had a great week in Vero Beach, aka Velcro Beach. Lots of boats get that far and either plan to stay for the winter or just get caught up with the free bus service to the malls, the congenial atmosphere, the weather, and the reasonable cost. For ten bucks a day on a mooring, rafted with a couple of boats containing your new best friends, you can watch the porpoises frolick, and head in to the dinghy dock where you can nudge your way in between the other 45 grey inflatables. It was a great place to spend a week, warm up, tidy up, get some jobs done, and celebrate Christmas.

We decided early on that we had the best raft in the harbour. All three of us decorated for Christmas, and there were only about three or four boats out of all the rest that bothered with lights. Nancy D. was the only boat sporting flags! They spelled Merry Christmaz, but sometimes you have to make do with what you have.
Evenings were spent sitting in the cockpit, having drinks chatting back and forth with the folks from Vixen and Freya. We all agreed that all our friends and family have a warped idea about our lifestyle. As Alan put it (read this with a Glaswegian accent), "they think we're swanning around down here, taking it easy." We all thought it would be instructive to let you know about the daily routine.

Alan is up at the crack of...well, sometime after dawn: a reasonable time to start using modest power tools. He spent the better part of the week shifting his rig further outboard so that his decks wouldn't flex in a stiff breeze. This involved creating or discovering new leaks in the cabin top.

Paul spent the first three days at the mooring dealing with plumbing (dirty work) problems. Paul doesn't like plumbing problems, particularly those that include holding tanks. Paul had plumbing problems up the yingyang - the galley sink also packed it in. The day we left, their laptop also retired.

Randy hooked up a radio remote mike that doesn't work (just tries to transmit everytime you connect it). Alan and Randy were hauled up their respective masts to do little jobs, and their respective nether bits went numb. Anne and Denise and I kvetched about the difficulty involved with every job on a boat: in order to accomplish it (electrical, plumbing, carpentry) it always involves tearing the boat completely apart.

Everything involves tearing the boat apart. I decided to scrub the mouldy bits in the forward cabin, and as soon as I started shifting books off the shelf, I discovered that there was mould in more places than those I could just see! And water! Ho ho! Who knew? So that meant all the cushions had to be dragged outside (heavy as hell, and heavier when WET), scrubbed and dried in the sun, and the whole interior of the forward bunk had to be scrubbed out. It's lovely and clean and smells less like it did before.

That was the day after I decided to tidy up my clothes locker and discovered that the new deck washdown pump had been leaking salt water into the back of my locker with every use. Three loads of laundry later, that was all sorted out and the connection rebedded.

Denise and I are learning to drive our dinghies. I'm glad I'm doing this while Tom's not here, because it involves inelegant procedures, and some profanity. This morning, Randy thought I was cursing at him, when I thought I was being perfectly clear about directing my comments to the pseudo-gear shift that purports to have three separate places for forward, neutral and reverse. I have come to the conclusion that "neutral" is
missing.

Did I mention the fruit flies? Mangroves on the shore seemed to provide an endless supply, which we've also hauled along with us to Fort Pierce. So we've been sitting in the cockpit, waving our hands over our drinks, fishing the little buggers out, and reviewing the desperate condition of our boats, our belongings, and our equipment. Combine all that with temperatures well into the 20's, clear blue skies, good friends, good wine, good food (except the bbq's got one element that's toasted, so you can only cook one steak rare in 20 minutes), and you can see that this lifestyle is really only for the incredibly tough and resilient. Skills. You've got to have skills. I'm picking them up as I go.

Next, we're sailing outside to Lake Worth - skipping a ton of bridges - then on to Fort Lauderdale where I hope we'll pick up Tom. Sailing! We haven't had the sails up for weeks. They're probably mouldy.