CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN: MANATEE GRAZING AND MARINA GETAWAY – IT’S GREAT TO BE BACK ON THE WATERWAY

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN: MANATEE GRAZING AND MARINA GETAWAY – IT’S GREAT TO BE BACK ON THE WATERWAY

It’s Good Friday Eve and we’re holed up in Titusville at the Municipal Marina, the Manatee Mecca of the World. This morning we were awakened to the very loud sounds of gnawing on the bottom of Slow Motion. Apparently the Key Largo diver did not clean all the manatee food off the bottom, or we picked up a lot of grasses plowing across the ocean for two days and cruising on the Intracoastal for the past two days. Who knew the Indian River was so fecund? The manatees did. They were having a feast! It must have been a whole family grabbing their Easter dinner early. Remember the sounds I described of the shrimp rat-a-tat tatting as they munched on Slow Motion’s hull? Well, the manatee sounds are not so fast or manic. Rather, they scrape off whatever is affixed to the bottom of the boat with their big buck teeth. It’s almost a sawing noise, persistent and relentless. You’re pretty sure that the next minute a manatee’s head will pop up through the floor of the boat asking for seconds, or thirds. I dreamt of walking off Slow Motion this morning and looking at a circle of manatees holding tin cups begging for more. There are signs everywhere at this marina warning you not to feed the manatees – and not to give them any fresh water either (they love, love, love fresh water). But will we be fined for the manatees feeding off Slow Motion’s hull? That would add insult to injury – no sleep because of their raucous munching noises AND a big, fat fine for not diving under the boat to chase them away! It’s not even safe to wash one dish in the sink at this marina. As soon as you turn on the tap water, manatees come waddling from all four corners of the marina to get a sip. I wish I had a camera under the boat to catch them in their acts of stealing water and munching away on the hull. Just picture big walruses with hippo heads and huge overbites digging into Slow Motion’s “skin” – erase that image, it’s too graphic.

Let’s move back to the very cute baby ospreys in their nest. We saw them yesterday on the waterway as we cruised from Vero Beach to Titusville under threatening skies. Both Mom and Dad were with them, feeding them. We also saw baby porpoises out on their own food hunting expedition. They have the good manners to search for food in the open waters, not to rip it off our boat’s hull. Every day the mammals, fish and fowl of the Intracoastal Waterway entertain us with their ordinary daily activities. There was a whole squadron of pelicans flying low across the whitecaps, then rising up in a V formation to soar over the waterway. The Admiral caught sight of a deer on shore, but it quickly ran back into the woods. Even though we have traveled this waterway along the Florida Coast four times before, I assure you every trip is exciting and full of the lives of the regular denizens of the rivers, inlets and sounds we traverse.

When not marveling at newborn ospreys and porpoises, the Admiral and I amuse ourselves in many ways. Yesterday we passed Honeymoon Lake, and the Admiral fell to one knee before me, mumbled something about our dating each other for a long time and was about to say – who knows? – because he cried in pain and stumbled to his feet before he could say anything else. There is only one Honeymoon Lake on this trip north, so the moment has passed. I see more dating in our future. The Admiral was laughing the whole time he pulled this stunt, so I wasn’t worried that he was getting serious on me. It’s amazing that we shared a light moment at all, after the grueling dock leaving we endured at Vero Beach just hours before.

There we were in the tiniest slip to ever hold a fifty foot boat with a 16 foot beam. It was 6 a.m. The wind was roaring through the marina. There was a fast current running every which way too. Should we leave, or shouldn’t we? If we stayed, we would probably have been forced to remain 4 days or more to sit out the thunder and lightning storms predicted through Saturday. If we left, we ran the risk of crashing into at least 3 sailboats on the way out. You couldn’t pay me enough to make this decision. Fortunately, the Admiral was up to the task. At 6:30 a.m., he decided we would leave Vero Beach. All we needed was the help of Don from Annie’s Song, the sailboat next to us, to hold on to the stern line and pull the stern close to the finger pier as the Admiral tried to turn the bow of Slow Motion to the right far enough to avoid hitting the boats directly in front of us. It was not just that our slip was narrow, but the fairway leading to the slip was also incredibly skimpy, so that the bow of Slow Motion was nearly kissing the sterns of the boats across the fairway from us. The Admiral stationed me on the stern, so I did not have a view of how close we got to those boats, but the Admiral said Slow Motion's bow was just a foot away from one of the three sailboats, as she finally turned the corner to head out into the channel. Whew! In the meantime, Slo Mo’s stern was busy grinding against a piling or two. Actually, one of the fenders gave its all, as the piling smushed it into Slo Mo’s stern near the swimboard. I wasn’t sure we could save the swimboard, but it narrowly escaped “death by piling”, and we were on our way! I waved to the crowd that had gathered – everybody loves a potential disaster – and this hardy group of boaters just stood on the dock with stunned looks on their faces. “How did they get out in this wind without hitting another boat?” I’m sure they’ll be talking about the maneuvering skills of the Admiral for a long time to come.

Note to self: Do not go into a slip built for a skinny sailboat at Vero Beach Municipal Marina ever again. What made this narrow escape even more harrowing is that, as one of the live aboard boaters told us, no one who works at the marina is trained to help boaters dock or leave the dock. We learned that firsthand, when an older gent with a walking aid came out to the dock upon our arrival the day before. I handed him a stern line, and he wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it. Furthermore, even if he did know what to do, he was not physically capable of bending down to reach the cleat to secure Slo Motion’s stern. Sailboater Don came to the rescue and took the line out of his hand and secured it. Then the municipal employee asked us how we were going to get off the boat. He was staring at the 4 feet between the rim of the cockpit and the dock, totally ignoring our steps off the side of the boat, which was hugging the finger pier. It may have been the first time he was ever out on the docks. Needless to say, we did not ask for his assistance in leaving the next morning. Of course, since this is a city-run marina, no one arrives until 8 a.m. and we were gone before 7 a.m. Second note to self: Do not return to Vero Beach Municipal Marina, unless there are no other options.

The good part of the stay at Vero Beach was that we met Maggie May, an Australian cattle dog rescued by her owners, Don and Ann, who stay on their sailboat, Annie’s Song, during the winter months. Maggie May has a bark that is so much like our dog Zorro’s. When I first heard her, I thought I was channeling Zorro, but then the Admiral told me to come quick and see Zorro’s sister. Maggie May is 9 years old, and she started her boating life at 12 weeks. This is the only life she knows and she loves it. She has gone through every possible major surgery – “the most expensive rescue dog in the world”, according to Don. She has the “Bentley” white mark on top of her head. Her eyes match and her tail is not nearly as fluffy as Zorro’s (his Husky genes), but she is super smart and a stickler for schedule. She knows exactly when it is time for her walks, and she will not be denied. If Zorro had been a puppy when we moved on to Slow Motion, I imagine he would have made a fine transition from herding cattle dog to sailing mate. But after his years running up and down the canyons and herding the cows and their calves – and looking like the happiest being on earth – we could not take him away from that. He’s still thriving with our Harper Canyon neighbors, and I had 5 glorious weeks of hikes with him in February and March, often two times a day. He’ll be six in September, and with any luck he’ll join us this year, when we return to land somewhere and prepare for our next adventure.

The manatees have left us alone for the past few hours. New boats have arrived, perhaps with more grass hanging from their bottoms than what we have left, after the manatee grazing. The winds have not let up. The Admiral says it was a real circus at the marina, as boaters tried to dock this afternoon, narrowly missing hitting other boats and the seawall. We have a neighbor on the T Head, a trawler with the Great Loop gold flag, and the neighbor is terrified that the new paint job on his boat will get ruined by the dock if the fenders don’t hold up. The marina folks lent him a couple of huge fenders to keep his boat even further from the dock, so it is much less likely that his new paint will be scraped. Still, I’m sure he’s worried. You have to Break Out more than Another Thousand to get your boat painted. However, if you want to keep it in perfect shape, put it in dry-dock. Don’t cruise on the waterway or the ocean, where the water, the wind, the birds, the rain, the marina pilings and docks, and just about every other element you encounter is ready to do some kind of damage to your beautiful boat. Slow Motion is not beautiful. She badly needs paint on the cockpit transom. Her bottom is obviously in need of a thorough cleaning. And a wax job on the entire body of the boat would really make her glow. All of this will have to wait until our cruising days are coming to an end, and we need to dazzle potential buyers. For now, Slo Mo with all her superficial imperfections is carrying us safely through the waters, no matter how choppy – function over form at this point. And the Admiral has the engines purring – knock on wood. So if you’re asking, I’m telling you we’re just glad to be back on the water, battling the winds, the thunder and lightning storms and trying to keep our boat and ourselves in one piece as we enter and leave the marinas. It’s good to be back.