Vero Beach – Marina wars

How would you like to exit from here?

In the middle of the Vero Beach City Marina dock space is the Vero Beach Yacht Club. They have their own set of docks that are sandwiched between two sets of docks owned by the City Marina. All appears to be mostly peaceful except for one end dock where the boat that uses it is pointed towards shore and the City Marina docks are pointed at right angles to that dock. For a City Marina boat to exit their slip they must aim directly for the offending boat and try to make a right angle turn to port. Since the boat that’s presently in the City Marina slip is over 40 ft long and the distance to the offending boat is only 20 ft, it presents an impossible exit situation. Talking to the guy with the boat in the City Marina slip, it seems the Yacht Club often uses that slip and there’s been some hard feelings as a result. It will be interesting to see how it gets resolved. Obviously, the City Marina boat can’t move. It would seem you wouldn’t be allowed to block another boat but the Yacht Club seems oblivious to the situation.

The Yacht Club in the middle of the City Marina

We were walking Hoolie tonight when we saw the houseboat by the shore on our dock sinking. One side is all the way in the water but the other side is still floating. Nobody seems to know that happened and the owner is not around. The marina’s solution is to put oil absorbent floats around the boat to contain any spill.

It was fine this morning!

Meanwhile, we took a trip on Vero Beach’s excellent, free bus service to the local mall. There is no charge to ride and you can go anywhere in the county over 14 separate bus routes. It’s a big attraction of Vero Beach and one of the big reasons many boaters stop over on their cruise north or south. It’s easy to provision with a big Publix supermarket only minutes away along with a West Marine store and Home Depot and Lowe’s – and many more. Time for teak, reprovisioning and laundry on Thursday.