Claustrophobic

Our first night back we decided to get pizza delivered.  We were too tired to search out a good local place so just ordered from Dominoes, our friends have been giving us grief over this but it was hot pizza, delivered….this was exciting stuff for us!  Keith handed me his wallet and I waited for the delivery man, when he arrived I handed over the money and at the same time it dawned on me it was a Bahamian bill.  A quick scrounge through his wallet and all I could find was pretty pink and yellow and blue money-no green.  We didn’t have a single American dollar on us. The very, very sweet and patient delivery man kindly explained we could just phone in a credit card.  No problem, except we don’t have an American phone either, he let us borrow his.  We exchanged a healthy tip for his time and help and we tiredly stumbled back to the dinghy with our still hot pizza.  

We spent the next few days hanging out at Vero Beach, mostly catching up with good friends.  We also made our first runs to Walmart and Publix.  Consumer choices overload!  Gahhh! I hit the produce section a little heavy and we had one hell of a salad.  Our main topic of conversation has been what were we going to do now that we were here.  We found ourselves totally without a plan (yes, still).  We checked out all the local marinas and reaffirmed what we already knew, a slip for the entire hurricane season was NOT in the budget, a mooring was (maybe) but the bugs and lack of breeze in the mooring field was unappealing and besides you don’t get much for your money besides a dinghy dock and access to public transportation. Staying anchored out was always a solution but I had my heart set on a water hose, something I haven’t seen in eight months.  Keith had his heart set on AC since we can’t go swimming in this water.  We finally came up with a workable solution.  We got a part-time slip.  It’s actually the same cheap slip we rented for ten years before we went cruising and before we move aboard the boat.  It’s part-time because it’s not for liveaboards.  But we can tie up, use the water hose, run the electric (and AC) while we are working on projects, and run about town from it. Some of the time we will spend anchored out or doing some local cruising. We were all hyped up. Finally, we had a plan!

We sailed on up to Satellite Beach to claim our new part-time parking spot! It’s a short sail, only a few hours, but as we got closer and closer we both got less and less enthusiastic.  Everything was familiar, the same buildings, the same derelict boats anchored out, the same brown muddy water we worked so hard to sail away from just one year ago.  The closer we got the shorter the time we spent away felt.  Until Keith said, “it’s like we were gone for a long weekend”.  We pulled into our slip, and tied the lines.  They weren’t even adjusted before we both said “I don’t like it”.  It felt claustrophobic, we almost untied the lines and left right then. We haven’t had the boat in a slip in about a year, the pilings felt too close, the dock too.  We were surrounded by the same five boats that were here when we left three years ago, I could lean over and touch them.  Even our least favorite anchoring buddies were never this close! We have rows of condos that now overlook our cockpit.  We both had a moment of anxiety and frustration and doubted if we should even rent the slip at all.  The only thing we were sure of was next year this wasn’t where we planned on spending hurricane season!

A few days of a water hose and AC and we are coming around. It was also nice to be tied up and relatively unconcerned while we were under a Tropical Storm Warning from Collin, not that being anchored out would have been an issue, still.  Continuing to have a VERY full social calendar has kept us happy with our plan at the moment too.  We’ve missed our friends, we are happy to see them all again.  Right now we are soaking up our fill with them, tackling the todo list, and making a game plan for our next cruise.  Spoiler-it doesn’t include coming back to Florida for a good long while!  But, since we are here, let’s have some fun!

**sorry there are no photos with this post, I’m having technical difficulties 😦  I’m sure I’ll be all straightened out soon!