Captain's Choice blog: Sunrise City and Velcro Beach

Fort Pierce's nickname is the Sunrise City, sister to San Francisco, CA, as the Sunset City. Because we were on the mainland side of the ICW we didn't get to see the sunrise until it cleared the buildings and trees. Ft. Pierce is also the county seat of St. Lucie County, Florida and was named after the army installation of Fort Pierce which was built in the area in 1838 during the Second Seminole War.

We stayed at the municipal marina Tuesday and Wednesday night which we just loved! This marina re-opened in 2015 after it had been destroyed 11 years earlier during Hurricane Francis. The new marina has a state of the art dock system with floating docks and a new entrance channel. There are 2 restaurants on site and is located in historic downtown Fort Pierce with shops, restaurants, art galleries and municipal buildings. It was fun to walk around and see the sights along with some of the art work located throughout the area. On Wednesday night we had some friends from Buffalo that are in the area on vacation stop and have dinner with us. What a treat that was!

The winds finally subsided Thursday so we decided to head over to Faber Cove, just 3 miles from the marina to anchor. A few more boats joined us in the anchorage, I think we were all happy for a little less wind and beautiful sunny skies. In contrast, we were notified that due to heavy winds of 60+ mph there was power outages at home that started Wednesday. This had us busy on the phone for a few hours checking on the restoration progress, securing a generator and contacting family and friends to help us out if the power was still out on Friday. In between phone calls we watched a cormorant working it's might against an eel for dinner. It was a real tug of war as the eel actually had wrapped itself around the birds head. The cormorant won and we watched him open the hatch and down the eel finally went.

Still no power at the "dirt house" on Friday morning as we moved the boat to Vero Beach City Marina. We were updated on the progress the electric company was making and just as our family and friends were getting ready to hook up the generator the power was restored! A big sigh of relief as we thought Mark would have to fly home if the outage was going to be lengthy. A big thank you to Ozzie, Danzer's, our nephew Tony and son Dan for all of your assistance!
Once that was complete we could relax and go see Vero Beach. Now Vero Beach has the unofficial nickname of "Velcro Beach" because people come here and get "stuck" here. They say hundreds of boaters regularly stop at Vero Beach as they head north and south, much like that of migrating birds and each year a few more are swayed into staying.
One of the great things about this marina is it is on the Ocean side of the ICW...which means just a mile walk to the beach. We couldn't wait to put our toes in the water as Zach Brown sings in "Toes".
I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand
Life is good today Life is good today
The ocean air was refreshing, the water was calm and we were delighted! We ate at Mulligan's on the water and then listened to a one man band sing a variety of songs that we knew and we sang right along with him.
Since I missed the sunrise in the sunrise city of Ft. Pierce we decided we would get up Saturday morning and walk to the beach to watch it. When the alarm went off at 5:30 am I did question my intentions but we got up anyway and am I glad we did! By 9 am we had walked almost 5 miles, seen the beautiful sunrise, walked on the beach, ate breakfast and gone to the farmer's market. What a glorious way to start the day! The city has a free bus that runs several routes, to the mainland, to malls, by the beaches, etc. and picks up in front of the marina hourly. Fellow loopers Kent and Jan from Follow that Dream were going to go to the beach via the bus at 1 p.m. and we joined them. What we didn't know is that the 20 minute walk to the beach was a 45 minute bus ride because the route took us over by the airport first. Well we got a glimpse of the city of Vero Beach first. We had fun walking along the beach, grabbing a beer and listening to the music at Waldo's and Mulligan's before walking back to the boats.
The weather forecast for Sunday was rain in the afternoon so we decided to head to the beach early to get some exercise. When you are this close to the water and sand why not? We got back to the boat in plenty of time before the showers materialized. In the meantime 3 more looper boats (Compass Rose, Satori and Time Out) have joined the 3 loopers (Sunset Delight, Follow that Dream, Captain's Choice) that are here at the marina, so it was docktails at 5. Due to the rain coming back it went from docktails to boattails as we all climbed on Sunset Delight. Thank you Evelyn and Clark!
At this marina, Monday night is hamburgers at Mr. Manatees Bar and Grill. This is a tradition that many of the "stuck" boaters at Vero started and they include any new comers to the dock or mooring field. Once we got to the restaurant Skip from Flying Pig explained the way to eat a Colossal Woodrow Burger, which is double stacked weighing in at 1 lb., egg, pork roll, bacon, onion rings, mozzarella sticks along with a side order of fries. The point of Skip's advice is if you eat the whole thing and the fries you get a free Mr. Manatee shirt. We had over 20 people at the table and there were certainly many wearing the infamous shirt...but there was no way this girl was going to even think of trying that. Mark also declined! Three rookies tried and only 1 succeeded, a few of the veterans did well and added to their shirt collection. I spoke to one women who ate the whole thing last week and her comments were, "never again and on Tuesday I couldn't move".

In the early morning hours on Tuesday the winds started howling...figures as we were scheduled to leave Vero Beach and anchor out. The clouds and rain dissipated but the winds kept blowing, the forecast was for 20 mph. We could have let the "Velcro" stick and stay a few more days but we decided to head out and go to the Cocoa Village Marina, 55 miles from Vero. Compass Rose, Sunset Delight and us all left and we can attest to the fact that the forecast was wrong again, the winds according to our anemometer measured gusts at 37.5 mph.