For anyone tracking us, we have been on a mooring ball at Vero Beach City Marina since November 12. Once we receive a few ordered parts and button up a couple of maintenance items, we’ll watch for an appropriate weather window to make the crossing to the Bahamas – hopefully in time for “Christmas in the Caribbean.” (That sounds so much better when you sing it.) Now as to our delayed website rollout and woefully empty blog, not to make excuses, but as one friendly boat owner told me when we were boat shopping, “the learning curve is straight up, but you’ll get it, and have such a wonderful time.” This is not Todd’s first rodeo, nautically speaking. For me, however, that turned out to be an accurate description of our first year on the boat. So, when our chosen website platform, WordPress, turned out to be a great deal less than user friendly, I repeatedly gave up in frustration in order to preserve my limited brain cells for more important things. The good news is I am now making progress on not only the more important things but also organizing our photos and tackling the blog. I plan to spend time over the next few days filling in from the past year. So, more to come, but it will be backwards, as I fill in with posts where they should have happened all along.

We made it to Vero Beach City Marina. Finally! And for our baby book/Captain’s Log of firsts, we picked up our first mooring ball. Again, after much research and watching how-to videos for Susie’s confidence, it was a piece of cake. Well, truthfully, we did it twice, but learned a bit for next time. Isn’t that how life goes?

PS – we learned today via a VHF side-channel conversation with a fellow boater that we missed a launch last night. We heard it, as we were anchored practically in Cocoa Beach. Good grief! Had we known, we’d have stepped out on deck to watch. Now Todd has an app for that, so to speak, so we know when the launches are coming.

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We spent a leisurely day following sv Soujourn for hours, opting to just take it slow. On a lark, Todd took their picture going through the Haul-Over Canal Bridge, then reached out on the VHF to offer to send the photo. They were thrilled, since cruisers don’t get very many pictures of their own boats in action. So, they returned the favor later in the day as we passed through the NASA Causeway Bridge behind them.

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We passed the NASA Vertical Assembly Building (VAB) in the distance at Cape Canaveral. How exciting! It was HUGE! Next time we come through we will stay somewhere close and take a tour. This time, however, we are hustling through trying to get to the islands for Christmas in the Caribbean (still sounds better when you sing it).

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We’ve learned over the year that you sometimes need not only a Plan B, but a Plan C (and sometimes D). Well, our Plan A was too exposed to the wind, and Plan B was crowded with abandoned looking vessels, so we pushed on to Plan C, the Pineda Causeway Bridge at 909, where we anchored at dusk somewhat protected from the wind by the bridge. Getting pretty good at anchoring.

There are many bridges in close proximity to Daytona. The interesting thing was the detail on some of them as viewed from the water. Speaks to the area’s love of the water. Made for a fun transit.

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We walked into old St. Augustine with Tracee, Royce and the kids, on a mission to visit a little eclectic shop Noah recommended and a flavored popcorn shop. Alaina, especially fond of the Sweet-Tart flavor, was quite generous about sharing, so much so that we had to begin turning it down with somewhat colorful tongues. (Whew, was it sweet.)

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The kids had to return to school, but Tracee came back a couple of times to visit and drive us around for provisioning and to hit a dive shop. (Driving Mr. & Mrs. Daisy?)

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