April 10th- Vero Beach, FL

Due to the various shelter orders, marina closures, and general covid-19 mayhem, we decided to spend another month in Vero Beach. We have the mooring until May 2nd. We’ll reassess the situation in May.

We’re still working on our sail repair. Lynne stitched 30 feet of material along the edge. It was difficult work (especially working at a picnic table). We had help from several different cruisers over the day. Social distancing is difficult when people are trying to work together. We tried. I still have some hand sewing to do.

Ollie is examining the area to be repaired. The sail is rolled up so we can feed it through the machine. The whole operation took 4 people.

It’s getting summery in Vero. Yesterday’s high temperature was 91 degrees. It’s been in the upper 80s most of the week. I bought a very light nylon awning (rainfly) used for camping along with some pvc poles. I sewed on some extra webbing to attach some light lines to fasten the whole thing up in the rigging. It throws some extra shade over the deck and keeps the cabin a little cooler. Unfortunately when the wind blows the whole setup has to come down as it catches the wind like a kite.


Catalpa at her Vero Beach mooring with her new awning.  They didn’t have white so I went with brown (the standard Cape Dory color).

Another issue has been noseeums. Noseeums are very small flying bugs that bite. Normal screens don’t keep them out as they can wiggle through the openings in the mesh. We found this out the hard way. I woke in the middle of the night thinking I was having some kind of allergic skin reaction. I was having a skin reaction due to bites. Thankfully we have some special noseeum netting aboard. We had already made a special screen for the front hatch. A few small improvements and that entry point was closed off to the little bastards. We netted off the companion way hatch and closed the rest of the ports, which only have normal screens. It’s a little hotter in the cabin but no bugs. It’s not much of a problem during the day as there is usually some kind of breeze so the bugs stay in the mangroves. At night things calm down and they attack. We also have bug spray, candles, and incense. All of this seems to be working. Olliver hates the bug spray but I hate the bugs MORE.

That’s the news from Vero. Captain and crew are healthy. Catalpa is holding up well. We’ve been getting together with friends at a socially acceptable distance. We had a birthday gathering with the crews of Gelato and Pepromenon. We had pizza delivered. Pepromenon has a freezer. They brought brownies and…. ICE CREAM!! The first ice cream we’ve had since last summer.

Stay safe. Happy Easter.

Some scenes from Vero Beach. Beaches are all closed. Olliver isn’t too happy about that. Maybe we’ll go on an early morning commando raid one of these days.