Velcro Beach

"Velcro Beach" January 18th, 2026

We are moored in Velcro Beach City Marina for the foreseeable future while we await a new Bimini to support our updated solar array, refit some of our water lines and catch up on  a variety of smaller projects. Meanwhile we are making friends and enjoying what Vero Beach hast  to offer.

Velcro Beach City Marina is  located just off the Indian River between the shore and downtown, and it is may be our favorite marina thus far, bolstering its reputation for deferred adventures. We are positioned at the end of the mooring field near some channels that wind amongst the mangroves above Fritz island. There are about a hundred vessels between the docks and moorings with a few others anchored nearby. The old channel for the ICW is adjacent to the mooring field, so we see some fisherman, sight seers, and of teams of scullers from the nearby Vero Beach Rowing Club. 

We purchased two inflatable paddle boards to explore the surrounding area where we observe dolphins, egrets, shipwrecks and some backwater residents anchored in a narrow channels amongst the mangroves. . We have been using our dinghy, Cockeyed Jackson, several times a day or more and getting a feel for her capability. She is initially tippy but ultimately quite stable, and at 7'-8" long ferrying four can be interesting. The upside is that she is easy to pick out in a crowd, rows well, and can be steered hands free by shifting your weight. We need to get the sailing rig on her and mess about.

                                    An Egret admiring Cockeyed Jackson in a cackle of gray RIBs.

We were assured that the water is "clean" in the area near our mooring but it is not particularly inviting, so we walk to the beach about a mile away to catch some surf. Most folks seem content to sit on the beach, but we found the temperature to be warmer than Cape Cod in late summer, and there is just enough of a break to do some body surfing.

                                                                       Catching  a break

We are not quite sure where the days are going but they are slipping by quickly as we consume books, food and sunsets. The community here at the marina is lovely and supportive, with weekly potlucks, equipment swaps, knowledge sharing, and a palpable laid back vibe. The crew at Vero Beach City Marina have fully embraced their responsibility in maintaining the relaxed atmosphere and can often be found five or six deep in the office working on it. I have filled out an application and am waiting to hear back.

We have made some new friends and have begun engaging in the sundowner circuit, which involves libations aboard with our neighbors just prior to the arrival of the mosquitos. Canadians make up a substantial portion of the community here and we were lucky enough to meet two of the best. I had been admiring S/V Kantala, a low slung ketch flying a Canadian flag on the adjacent mooring, and suspected the owners were pretty salty. Micheal accidentally swerved near our boat while we were eating dinner in the cockpit  evening and then came by the next day to apologize. He enjoyed chatting nearly as much as we do and an invitation followed. 

                                        Kantala's  low freeboard and ketch rig in the twilight.

Michael and Sheila hail form Victoria, BC and have been living aboard for nearly forty years. Michael built the 12 meter ferro-cement design in his backyard and Sheila came aboard sometime during the seven year process and helped him finish. Kantala  has a very substantial feel at 22 tons, and they have crafted and decorated the interior beautifully over the years. They have not quite completed their goal for the longest circumnavigation, having left form Victoria circa 1989. They spent the bulk of their sailing in the South Pacific, but they have a vague plan to cross the gulf of Mexico and Panama Canal before heading back to their home in Victoria. Entropy rules, and Columbia is next on their list.

Michael and I rigged up the dinghies for sail and had a mess about in the mooring field and adjacent lagoon. Cockeyed Jackson  had a disadvantage in getting to windward with her lug rig but she gets a lot of praise for her good looks. Michael was a great help with sussing electrical issues and Sheila and Jessica had a lot of laughs while my head was in the bilges.

We formed a friendship with Morgan Bear aboard the sailing catamaran Serenity  who is sailing solo after their partner returned to shore, and were thankful for their knowledge of computers as a cyber security expert. Morgan helped us sort some software updates with our navigational system and has shared their knowledge of the Bahamas and  and various other topics as sailors are want to do. 

Vero Beach is not particularly pedestrian friendly unless you are near the beach so we considered renting bicycles until we witnessed a terrifying collision between a young man on an electric bicycle and an elderly woman. The teenager was okay but but was exhibiting signs of  entitlement and misogyny toward Jessica and another nurse practitioner who cared for him until the paramedics arrived. We'll stick to the sidewalks. Vero Beach has more than its fair share of financial advisors and interior designers if that tells you anything. Bentleys and Ferraris aplenty. Jessica has found some fellow knitters and kicked out this awesome pair of fingerless gloves for keeping my mitts warm at the helm. I has been an unusually cold winter in Florida too.

Our friends were in town from California and we shared some wine aboard Noëpe  before enjoying a delicious meal by the ocean. Mark and Gabrielle had a firm grip on the rail as we made our way back and forth from the dock and I did what I could to reassure them but four adults in Cockeyed Jackson  seems to be the reasonable limit of her payload. I have sorted most of the details surrounding the dinghy including leathered oars, and a davit system for getting her out of the water and free of bottom growth. We have yet to see how she will preform in a seaway, but our attempts to swamp her on Lake Ogontz in New Hampshire indicate that she is up to the task.

Our auto pilot has been a source of concern since leaving the Chesapeake with multiple incidents of losing course and after trouble shooting the issue with fellow cruisers we resorted to hiring a professional who was also stumped. Ultimately we replaced the actuator which is basically the brains of the system and recalibrated the system. More on this later.

By the middle of March we were looking for a window to make the Gulf Stream crossing which requires having no Northerly component to the winds amongst other variables. The 15th was a narrow window but doable so prepared to get our vessel South to the Lake Worth inlet which is the shortest crossing point to the West End of the Grand Bahamas. Morgan Bear had planned to accompany us but had to abort their plans at the last minute. Jessica and I made our way down the ICW but had several soft groundings alongs the way, and the last one in the Jupiter inlet required a tow from BoatUS, the AAA of the waterway.

Serendipitously, our sailing friends Carlos & Kelly who we met during a sail training in Scotland were in town from Madison, Wisconsin and hoping to get their sailing vessel to the Bahamas. We planned to meet at the Lake Worth inlet and  leave at 0400 on Thursday March 12th. We learned again that the best laid plans can quickly go sideways, and after our grounding in Jupiter the revving of the engine must have introduced some sand into the raw water pump compromising the seals. We arrived in Lake Worth later than we expected and had a couple of quarts of water below the engine. Our raw water pump was leaking and the rear seal on the engine seemed to be weeping a little more oil than usual, possibly due to the stress I exerted on the engine trying to get off the sandbar. Out Volvo/Penta MD 22A starts and runs fine but the engine is 31 years old. The engine situation gave us pause, we were exhausted, and we had to run a couple of last minute dinghy errands, which left us preparing the boat for a Gulf Stream crossing as the sun was setting. We set our alarms for 0300 but I did not sleep much and we made the last minute decision to delay our crossing and sort the engine issues. Sailboat cruising: Doing repairs in exotic places!

We watched Kelly and Carlos motor off just before 0400 with another vessel and went back to bed. As it turned out they had a relatively easy crossing motor sailing on a close reach to get across the stream, but as they approached the West End the had a boom failure at their gooseneck that rendered their mainsail inoperable. Two days later they motored back to Fort Pierce. The bright side is that we got to see them again and enjoyed some Venezuelan lunch, and a haircut for me.