How about I skip the daily details and just say that our stay was much the same as usual for the southbound trip and yet not the same at all. No s/v Polar Pacer, no s/v Sanuk and we never got rafted.

We learned that Tom and Chris on Polar Pacer had sold their sturdy Prout and were shopping heartily to find a replacement in time to rescue the winter cruising season. Chris and Tracy on Sanuk, who hadn’t left Crisfield yet called us one day to –gasp- tell us that Tom and Chris were on Florida’s west coast looking at – of all things- a monohull! This is coming from a monohull owner who plans to be a Lagoon 38 catamaran owner someday. Surely an intervention was in order immediately.

After making five trips to Publix we were presented with the frequent shopper award; a carriage with our name on it 🙂 We also visited The Fresh Market, the ABC Liquor Store, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Hallmark and the dentist for our 6mos cleanings. The free bus makes this so easy. We kept meeting the same cruisers and exchanged stories and boat cards as per custom.

We also made two trips to the beach side of Vero. The first was to pay a visit to the Fidelity office. Russ found one of his accounts locked when attempting to initiate a trade. A phone call told us that the IRS didn’t like the fact we had no permanent domicile and hadn’t accepted the marina’s address in Deep River as our “home address.” So there you have it folks, we are truly, absolutely, officially homeless! After assuring the nice customer service guy that that was the best we could do now, he checked with a more senior person who said that we would need to bring our drivers’ licenses, boat documentation papers and the marina’s summer dockage invoice to a local Fidelity office. How convenient that the only one we have ever found in our travels, sits on Beachland Blvd in Vero Beach; on the bus route or walkable.

From there we visited the friendly folks at the Post Office next door and I was able to make a haircut apt at Beauty on the Beach for Saturday. Perfect- while I did that Russ would meander around the farmers’ market at Humiston Park.

Boats poured in – some even left- until nearly every ball had two or three boats rafted together. A few days before Thanksgiving SeaSparrow arrived and since we were the sole occupant of M56 and only one other cat was available to raft up with, we listened to what the marina would have them do. Except the marina didn’t respond to their radio calls. Debbie and Jeff are newbie sailors and boat owners who we’d met in Marineland. Russ went out to offer assistance and soon returned leading SeaSparrow to M52, two balls south of us. Nice. Since we are up in the nosebleed section, #56 out of 57, was good to have them close.

Our other friends from Marineland, Ann and Mike on m/v Traveling Soul arrived a few days after we did and couldn’t have been farther away on ball #1. Didn’t stop us from swinging by for a chat which became easier when they moved to a slip for the last two nights.

We did a mini baking marathon Wed and Thursday to make productive use of the oven being heated up. Thanksgiving Day thankfully turned out to be a decent, albeit windy day; better than many of the rainy, ultra windy days we’d had since arriving Nov 17. We shared a table outside in the lee of the bldg, with m/v Traveling Soul,s/v  SeaSparrow, s/v Topanga and m/v Oz. Delicious food and great company; the only thing missing was more family. My taste buds were thrilled to find a bowl of creamed onions on the table and a slice of pecan pie calling out on the dessert table- whipped cream too!

Friday we’d depart after one more trip to Publix- darn good thing we like the Vero store, pay our mooring tab, replenish our diesel and gas jugs and place the last of our holiday mailings in the oversized outgoing mail box- oh and exchange more books. Bahamas or bust; we are so close… just a few more days until the window opens and boats head out like ants to a picnic.