Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, Florida, USA

27 39.70 N
080 22.34W

Vero Beach. This may be the most cruiser friendly town in the world. They want cruisers coming here. They make it easy for them. The smallish, snug, well protected marina and mooring field, according to the marina staff, serves three thousand boaters who spend 20,000 nights a year, mostly in the winter enjoying life and spending their money in Vero.

While the mooring field eliminates a free anchorage, a loss I mourn deeply, the replacement at affordable rates is acceptable and rapidly becoming a trend for other communities using Vero as a model. This also manages and controls the boat population to eliminate derelict boats and human flotsam that have given the rest of us a questionable image.

This is definitely one of those quaint, caring places one could stay forever, inexpensively, on moorings for which we gladly paid $10.00 a night. Bus transportation is at the front door of the marina as are all the necessary services. Unfortunately, the mooring field is small and busy enough that you are required to raft up as much as three deep on a single mooring. This means neighbors, really, really close. We are content to be here for a while.

This is a time-enhancing flashback to last Saturday March 27th, 2005

Having arrived at Stuart Municipal Marina, we found the mooring field there still closed to boats due to last summer's hurricanes. We were directed across the river to a large anchorage where we took up residence through the following Monday. We found this St. Lucie South Fork anchorage to be fraught with careless boaters who either ignorantly, disdainfully or both drove everything at full throttle and/or maximum wake past the anchorage 24/7. Mostly we could ignore the wakes. At times they were annoying, others amazingly disconcerting.

Imagine, play along here, imagine sitting on your back porch or deck in a comfortable chair, your favorite beverage sitting on the deck at your side when suddenly, but rather slowly, almost imperceptibly, your chair slides three feet one way and then three back. For me, it was extremely perplexing and absolutely surreal. I couldn't grasp the fact I was sliding back and forth because my drink was sliding with me at the same relative speed and distance. So while moving back and forth I was still reaching down picking up my glass setting it down and picking it up with out looking. Disconcerting and darn spooky. I tried to tell you all; there is a god of rum. She cares for me.

Don & JoAnne Perrine, who we met and enjoyed at Ft. Louden, TN. last year during our river trip, are temporarily living in Stuart, FL outfitting their brand new, wet paint new, not even a scratch new Nordhavn 47, named Jade Explorer.

I have only one thing to say about this boat. "Oh---my---Gawd" I have been reading about these boats for years now. Have even been aboard the 40' Nordhavn first built years ago. But this, this, thing. This thing is not a boat. It is SHIP! I mean a go to China ship, a world traveler ship, a protected place to curl up in a fetal position as it goes merrily around Cape Horn all by itself ship.

If you are a man standing next to this SHIP, it is releasing man chemicals that every male over the age of twelve instinctively understands to mean "Don't screw with me!" This is a man's man world-traveling trawler.

Don & Joanne have worked hard all their lives and have the means to build this boat and equip it the way they have always dreamed of having one equipped. They did. The boat will be a trawler-cruiser's dream when completed and operational in a few days. I  won't offend Don by speculating on the cost, however, I will share this much. My estimates suggest the electronics on the Jade Explorer cost more than my boat is worth.

Based on what I have seen, and how the boat is equipped, I believe Don plans some pretty serious blue water cruising in the next few years. If you get the opportunity to visit Don and JoAnne Perrine aboard Jade Explorer, do it. Not only will you enjoy extremely charming and magnanimous hosts, but a brute of a trawler daring you to explore the world

From the pilothouse of my little old inexpensive coastal cruising trawler.

Capt'n Lynnie and Skinwalker