New Years Eve

New Years Eve

Thursday 31 December 2020

I’m very happy to report that Gloria’s brother Paul’s surgery went well and he is on the road to recovery, which is a huge relief. Hopefully he should be home in a day or two.

2020 was not a great year for so many people. I think Gloria and I recognize that we have had a much easier time than most. So let’s hope that 2021 brings a much better year for everyone who has found this year a struggle.

We did a few more boat jobs this morning, topping up the fuel tanks and some cleaning inside. In the late afternoon we headed over to the State Park at Sebastian Inlet about 14 miles north of Vero Beach. This inlet is not a route that we could use from the Atlantic Ocean to the Intra Coastal Waterway, partly because it is fairly shallow, but more importantly there is a fixed bridge with a vertical clearance of less than 30 feet that crosses the inlet … our mast with instruments is 62 feet! The beach was closed today due to strong rip currents and /or Portuguese Man of War jellyfish. We saw a few of these washed up onto the beach, but also sea looked really rough and there is a small craft advisory in place until the weekend. We wouldn’t chose to go offshore in these conditions. The strong outgoing current and onshore winds were kicking up some impressive and scary looking waves. There were many people fishing off the pier and bridge and also lots of water birds of various sorts. It was fun to spend time there, but as the sun set the no-see-ums (“midges”) came out in force (despite the strong breeze) and we headed back to the boat for dinner and a lazy evening. We figure we might last an hour past “boaters midnight” (9 pm) … there’s no way we’ll see true midnight!

Happy New Year everyone!

Mike

27 39.482 N, 80 22.215 W

The beach at Sebastian Inlet - a no swimming day

Snowy Egret

Brown Pelicans in Flight

A sad sight - a Royal tern with fishing hook stuck in its beak (perhaps through its tongue)

A juvenile brown pelican at sunset