April 27th- Vero Beach, FL

Of course we planned on being in Vero Beach for a few days. Then the Velcro effect took over. At first we were waiting for our mail to catch up with us. Then it was a problem with my credit card that needed to be solved. Now it’s some “funny” weather. As always, we’ve enjoyed our time here, we just can’t leave.

Everything is in full bloom in VB.

Ollie really enjoys his visits to Vero. We’re pretty sure he recognizes the place when we arrive.

We have been splitting the cost of a rental car with SV Rhiannon so it’s been easy to provision Evergreen. We had family visit and went out for a great meal. We have also been touring some of the local eateries with Rhiannon. Calzones, Ruben sandwiches, burgers, fish, dinners onboard, our waistlines are growing! One day we came back to Evergreen to find SV SMAC tied up with us. We had a great reunion and they invited us over for dinner and to share stories from the sea.

The Storm.

There is a saying that sailors have short memories pertaining to the weather. Mostly the weather is good but every once in while it is scary. We have been in a few storms. The squall we had yesterday (April 26th) topped them all. It is difficult to describe the fury of this particular storm. We were on shore when I first noticed it approaching. We quickly dinghyed back to Evergreen. We weren’t really thinking about storm intensity at the time, we just didn’t want to get soaked on the way back to the boat. I didn’t do anything extra to prepare the boat because we didn’t know what was about to hit us. When the storm hit the lightning was constant. The wind intensified and continued to do so rapidly. The boat swung in a circle and continued to buck back and forth through large arcs. The rain was so intense that I’d call it a “white out”. I couldn’t see anything. I also couldn’t hear anything due to the roaring of the wind. I turned the motor on to try to relieve some of the stress on the mooring but couldn’t hear the engine nor could I actually see the mooring. I gave up on that idea since it seemed I’d likely do more harm than good with the engine in gear. Eventually we had some of the heaviest hail I’ve ever been in. I thought it was going to pound through the dodger or the awning we had up.

I don’t know how long it lasted but eventually it passed. The hail melted. I bailed about 6″ of water from the dinghy. Several boats had shredded sails. A few boats had their dinghies flipped over, damaging the outboard motors. Evergreen sustained no damage.

The wind speed indicator at the marina topped out at 75mph. A near by restaurant recorded 100mph. I was told there was evidence of “cyclonic activity”. Who knows what happened? It was a very local event. There were some trees knocked down and tons of leaves everywhere. A few miles away there was only light rain.

Hopefully I forget all this in a day or two.

Let me outa here!

Evergreen moored in Vero Beach on a sunny day.