Tuesday, January 12, 2010 Vero Beach

I think the theme for this week is “another cold day in Florida – land of the flowers and frozen iguanas falling over”. The amount of dead/dieing fish is incredible. The birds are swarming on the water and loving the feast. It’s a gluttony of fish for the seabirds. The fish that are dieing are too sluggish to escape as the birds swoop and dive on them. So the birds are getting fat & sassy.

We took another trip into town for more provisions. There was a massive traffic jam heading to Pocahontas Park so the driver tried to reroute around it but there was no way he could avoid the traffic backups. A fireman had died and his funeral procession was winding through town. It was amazing how respectful the people in the traffic snarl were. Everyone seemed to realize what was going on. Nobody was beeping their horns or acting impatient in all the cars that I could see. I feel so bad for his widow and kids. I think it takes someone special to do the job that policemen and firemen do. If you want to see heroes, these are the ones…

After our trip in town and unpacking, we dropped off some bread starter at Winfield Lash and headed over to Greylag. Mark and Alice from Greylag - a Krogen Cutter rigged sailboat - had invited us over for dinner so I made a fruit salad for dessert and we headed over to their boat for a delightful dinner of salad, lasagna and fruit salad. It’s a beautiful boat with similar lines to ours. The name Greylag comes from a type of wild goose from the British Isles. It’s a very sturdy and lovely boat. There are less than 90 of these sailboats in existence and when people think of Krogen they generally think trawlers not sailboats. This was a short production run for them. I’m not sure why they stopped making these boats but like our B-36 it’s another orphan boat with a loyal following. With a 3.5’ draft and a drop down centerboard, I think their boat is better suited for the Bahamas than ours! We’d seen their boat in St. Augustine and because it had a similar shear and look about her to ours we thought she might be a Gozzard design. It was nice to meet them and have dinner with them and their son George. He’s a high school senior, finishing up his last year of school on the boat, and then going on to the Merchant Marine Academy. He wasn’t feeling to good when we met him, but we found him to be quite a personable young man. :) I think he’ll do well in life. They’re heading down to Marathon and aren’t sure yet if they’re Bahamas bound or not. I wouldn’t mind running into them down there. I think the experience would be a good one for George before he branches off on his own. It would be a good “last” family adventure before the young man leaves the nest.