DUCK!

We pulled our anchor and proceeded north on the Indian River. Our next destination was Vero Beach. 

I had a very good friend living there. He is a member of my high school class, and he had invited us there to stay at his club which had some very nice docking facilities.

We pulled into his club and we were treated very well. 

We spent two days there, reminiscing with his wife and him talking about life in general. 

We had dinner at a great restaurant.  We met his daughter and grandkids who were quite a lively bunch. 

We explored Vero Beach a bit, did a little shopping, said goodbye and continued on. 

From Vero Beach we were heading up the Indian River towards Melbourne Florida. 

We had some good friends who we were going to visit with that lived in Incline Village in the summer and in the Melbourne area in the winter. 

The wife is a tennis buddy of Libbie’s.  Tennis was definitely on the agenda.  

They live on a side canal just off the south end of the Banana River, which was right next to the Indian river.   There was a good anchorage close to the canal that accessed their private dock. 

Libbie and I dropped our anchor and got Selkie settled.  

It was Valentine’s Day and our friends had invited us over for a dinner to celebrate Valentine’s Day. 

We dropped the dinghy in the water and motored to the Grand Canal just off the Banana River.

At the entrance, there were three dolphins that were very frisky, wrestling with each other. We watched them for a minute, and then continued on to our friends’ dock.  They helped us tie up.

Our Valentines Dinner was great, and after desert we said goodbye for the evening, climbed into the dinghy and motored off down the canal. It was well past sunset and pretty dark.

To help navigate our way back, Libbie held a spotlight, shining it ahead of us.

We saw a commotion in the water ahead of us. It was a flock of ducks.

They behaved like ducks under threat, and took off. But some reason, they were confused by the searchlight and flew directly at us.

I yelled “DUCK” as one was headed directly at Libbie’s head. The duck was flying completely blind.

Libbie ducked, and the duck narrowly missed Libbie. The ducks continued on, quacking as they disappeared. We laughed about Libbie almost getting hit by a duck.

We made it back to Selkie for the evening without further incident.

The next day we moved from our anchorage to our friends’ yacht club and spent 3 nights there.

We wound up having a very even tennis match with our friends.

Libbie and I did persevere and win the game. But not by much. It was great fun, and it was the first time I had played a full tennis set with my new shoulders.

One cool thing about this couple is that they have an extended circle of friends that do a lot of things together. 

Those extended friends have seemed to adopt Libbie and me as well.

That came through the next few nights. We were wined and dined like we had never been wined and dined on the loop. 

We went from one house to another for several dinners and a baby shower. We were welcomed into their homes.  It was an honor to be with them. 

While we were there, there were a couple of SpaceX Starlink satellite launches scheduled for Cape Canaveral, which was nearby. 

I was excited to see a satellite launch. 

It’s one of the things on my bucket list to do. 

Sadly, we did not see the launches because it was overcast both nights. 

However, we are close enough that we could certainly hear the rocket launch. A very deep rumble that would shake you to the core if you were closer. 

One of the interesting things about anchoring in the Banana River is that there is a huge rowing and paddling community there. 

It’s excellent training “grounds” for Olympic class sculling, kayaking, and canoeing. 

There were several international teams that were out every morning practicing. 

These people were very impressive specimens, both the men and the women. It was quite a scene to watch. 

This portion of our adventure on Selkie was coming to an end. 

We were going to park the boat at the Eau Gallie Yacht Basin for the month of March to go skiing back in Tahoe. 

We had family coming to join us in Tahoe. Libbie was bound and determined to help her grandkids ski at the local resort by our house. 

With that in mind we left the Banana River and proceeded 40 minutes over to the Eau Gallie Yacht Basin. 

There’s some maintenance that needed to be done on Selkie. 

A fan belt needed to be replaced on the main engine.

The water pump impellers on the main and genset needed to be replaced.

The thermostat on the generator engine was not completely malfunctioning but was making the engine run a little hotter than normal and that needed to be fixed. 

With us gone a month it was a perfect time to have the work done by a technician. 

In addition, one of the air conditioners on the boat had been showing signs of failing (Selkie has two) and as luck would have it, it dropped dead when we pulled into Eau Gallie Yacht Basin. 

There was a nearby air-conditioning tech that I was able to get in touch with. The tech will work on fixing that as well while we are gone. 

Eau Gallie is an interesting part of old Florida.

Eau Gallie, now part of Melbourne, has a rich history dating back to the mid-19th century.

Settled in the 1850s, it was officially founded in 1869 by William Henry Gleason, a former Florida lieutenant governor, who named it “Eau Gallie,” meaning “rocky water” in French, likely referencing the coquina rocks along the Indian River Lagoon.

The town grew as a hub for agriculture, fishing, and trade, as it was located at the confluence of the Indian River and Eau Gallie rivers.

Geologically speaking, the ground there is higher than much of the surrounding area, making Eau Gallie a safe haven from the flooding that can happen during major storms and hurricanes in the area.

The town’s economy was later bolstered by the railroad in the late 1800s.

In 1969, Eau Gallie merged with Melbourne, but its historic downtown, featuring landmarks like the Rossetter House Museum and Eau Gallie Arts District, preserves its unique identity and cultural heritage.

Just off the main road, there are several old homes that have been there for a long time. They have signs in front giving some history of the house and the area.

We had one more night of fun with friends scheduled while we were in the Eau Gallie Yacht Basin before we left for Orlando to fly back to Tahoe. 

It was a great evening, and we will most likely see these friends again before we head north to cross our wake in Maryland. We look forward to it. 

We will come back in April and continue the loop at that time. 

The last morning, our friends that we had Valentine’s dinner with picked us up in their car and drove us to Orlando airport. 

They were also traveling that day with the same group of friends we had spent time with as they were all traveling to Finland as a group to see the northern lights. 

It has been a great section of the Loop for us, traveling south on the west side of Florida from Punta Gorda, all the way down past the Everglades to the Keys and then up the AICW to Melbourne. 

A lot of memories were generated, all good memories. We had a little bit of regret as well as we could’ve spent a few more days in the Keys than we we did. 

But part of doing the Loop is knowing we can always return at another time and enjoy what we missed. 

In the meantime, it was time for a break from Selkie and for us to sleep in our own bed. Selkie was in good hands while we were gone.  

I’ll start another blog post after we return in April. But for now, let’s enjoy the beginning of Spring!