Larry Brown and his pet possum, "Odie" at a Vero Beach oceanfront street party Friday.
January 4-9
Left Cocoa at 8 a.m. headed for Vero Beach. Dead calm on the Indian River. It’s easy to see why Vero Beach affectionately is known as “Velcro Beach” -- once you get here, no one wants to leave. The marina and moorings are great. Gretel the African gray parrot (who will live up to 100 years) is at the marina office and has quite the vocabulary (and a nice whistle!). The city has a free shuttle bus for its residents, which conveniently swings through the marina. Take one bus and there’s a Publix, a West Marine, a dive shop and a TJ Maxx. Another bus goes to the oceanfront with sandy beaches, parks, and upscale shops and boutiques.
Our second full day at Velcro Beach was cool and rainy -- a perfect time to do chores around the boat and to have the “honey wagon” pay a quick visit. We took the dinghy to shore and walked to the oceanfront. We were back in time for the 4 p.m. “happy hour” at a picnic area in the marina. Lots of boat talk and guitar strumming. The sky was so vividly red at sunset that if we hadn’t known better, we all swore there was a blazing fire in the west.
Four other Krogenites are here - three on trawlers (Nancy and Bob Anderson on a Krogen 39, “Puffin;” Greg and Lena from Toronto, who came in for the night on their Krogen 48 “Traveler,” and Wayne and Carol, who live here but have a Krogen 48 Whalebody “Fluke” nearby. They came down to the dock and we all talked about going to the Bahamas. Carol and Wayne had been there many times and shared some of their tales. There’s another Krogen, a sailboat. We didn’t know Krogen even made a sailboat -- apparently there are about 80 of them. Bob and Nancy are going to the Bahamas, too, so we’ll talk more in the next couple of days. Philip ordered three Explorer charts of the Bahamas and is waiting for them to be delivered by UPS.
We’ve met a lot of interesting people on our voyage.
George, who has been spending winters here for 31 years, said boaters often don’t talk much about their professional careers. He said he’d known one man for nine years before recently learning that he was one of four people who mapped the moon before Neil Armstrong made his “one giant leap for mankind.”
Toby, another boater, is retired from the State Department where he was in charge of audits for AID in more than 20 countries in east Africa.
Maybe the nice weather is a magnet, but Vero Beach seems to attract some rather odd characters, as well.
Larry Brown is one of them.
He was walking through a crowded, city-sponsored oceanfront street party that we went to Friday evening. His corpulent pet opossum was draped around his neck like a scarf.
Its mom was road kill and two babies were rescued from her pouch. Larry fed the pair kitten formula with an eye dropper; one didn’t survive, “Otis” did. That was two years ago and when it turned out that Otis was a girl, she was renamed “Obie.”
Larry said Obie is docile and “very socialized.” She thinks he’s her mother, Larry said. No matter how many people came up to pet her, Obie -- who wasn’t on a leash -- seemed content to ride on Larry’s shoulders and nuzzle his ear with her pointy snout. Her brown fur is soft as a cat’s and her white, hairless tail is as rough as a lumberman’s hands.
Larry also has two other rescue pets: a 4-year-old fox, “Bo,” (named, he said, for “fox” Bo Derek) and “Merlin,” a raccoon who’s about 3.
Each has its own personality. Bo the fox was raised around children and wags his tail whenever he sees little kids. Merlin gets into a snit if someone takes away his food, toys or is made to go to bed. Merlin also likes to wrestle with Larry’s nine-month old Australian shepherd.
Larry pays $50 a year for a state license to legally keep the critters. Fortunately, his wife loves animals. A chemical engineer, Larry said he had his own company in Philadelphia for many years before moving to Florida.
He works for the Indian River County public utilities department. Larry said the county administrator isn’t fond of him or Obie; he thinks Obie scares people.
January 3
We again left at daybreak, bound for Cocoa. Dolphin were everywhere. We passed by Mosquito Lagoon, Haulover Canal and Titusville. No rocket launches on this day. The Titusville Bridge (aka Max Brewer) swing bridge opened on demand and the bridge tender told us she’d be retiring when the new, 65-foot fixed bridge opens next month.
We spent the night at the Cocoa Village Marina and had an all too short get-together with our Edenton friend, Ann Rosenblatt. Dinner at a Thai/Japanese restaurant -- the sushi was even better than Joss’ in Annapolis, and that’s saying something.
January 2
We left our mooring at St. Augustine, bound for Daytona, at daybreak. Dick and Carolyn had warned us about shoaling on the Matanzas river and inlet and we timed it to avoid kissing the bottom. The tides and currents pushed us along so fast that we bypassed Daytona and at the end of a 60-mile day, anchored out at New Smyrna Beach.
This was the Florida we had expected -- palm trees, warm breezes, dolphins and pelicans everywhere and wall-to-wall houses. And given that it was Sunday, pleasure boaters were in abundance, enjoying the break in the cold spell that had swept through most of the East Coast. The mercury climbed to 80 and for the first time since our trip began nearly a month ago, we could shed fleece jackets.
We caught up with Judy and Bill Chappell on their Island Packet 40 in New Smyrna and walked around the charming town that features remnants of an old fort. There is no fencing and we were amazed that you could walk all over it without even a “climb at your own risk” posting.
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