I spent the next two days exploring Vero Beach a bit. In addition to the courtesy docks at the Riverside Cafe, just on the other side of the bridge was a small cove with a few boat ramps to which dinghies could tie off.
This was right next to a very nice and huge dog park. This became my yoga spot. It was fun to watch 30 or 40 dogs of every breed and size playing with each other, and many would come by to check me out on my mat. Especially on New Year’s Day, which was gorgeous, the park was absolutely full of people and dogs.
I also tried out the free public transportation system (busses), but had very bad luck with it, as I have with any public transportation system in any U.S. city that I’ve tried. The routes are difficult to determine, the websites are confusing, the busses unreliable.
As in Norfolk, after taking two hours to get somewhere just a few miles away, I opted to Uber back to the dinghy.
There were certainly a lot of cruisers around, but most of them were at the city-operated marina and mooring fields. Unfortunately, this was one of those marina’s that offered no services unless you were in one of their slips or on one of their mooring balls, i.e., you couldn’t even tie up a dinghy at their dock. So, those of us at anchor felt fairly ostracized since all the cruiser activities were centered around, or at least communicated via, the marina. There were evidently a lot of activities, but it seemed difficult, not being part of the marina community, to get involved.
The anchorage/marina not being walking distance from anything except the park and Riverside Cafe, the the busses really sucking, and not seeing a way to break into the social circles, I decided I wouldn’t spend a lot of time here. Then, when the forecast indicated a front coming through with strong winds coming from the south/southwest, I realized that my anchorage would experience a couple miles of fetch and would at least be uncomfortable, if not unsafe. So, I decided that the next day, January 3rd, I would head further south, perhaps getting as far as Stuart, which was my next intermediate destination, and if not, there was an anchorage at Jensen Beach that looked like it would suffice.