Vero Beach at last

Vero Beach - "where the tropics begin"!  That is a horticultural fact based on latitude.  The climate allows tropical plants to grow here; plants that can't survive even a few miles north.  It's the place that WE know as where we can always finally wear shorts in winter!  Not today, but before we leave, I bet.  Today was nice - around 70 and sunny, and 48 tonight.

Vero Beach seems like a cute little FL town, but the reality of it is that more retired Fortune 500 CEO's live here than any other place in the world.  The town has the 4th highest concentration of wealthy households in the US.  That is amazing to us as we sit here in our little boat in the modest city marina.  But it's a busy marina!  These moorings often have 2 or 3 boats on each one of them.  Fortunately, we have a mooring to ourselves.

Smoke likes that - she is comfortable in her little world.  A bath after a long day of travel.

Here is Smokey demanding a noggin rub from the newest crew member, "Bob".  Yes, that used to be me, but after the scalping I got instead of a trim at a shop in St. Augustine, I look more like a Bob.  It's shorter than it looks in the picture.  That's a lot of wee little short wisps of hair.  Luke's hair is literally longer than mine.

We were excited to see an anhinga in the mooring field!  Never seen one here before and have actually seen only a very few in the wild.  This beautiful bird looks a lot like a cormorant, but their necks are longer and they appear more snake like. In fact, they are called "snake birds" because when they swim, only their necks and heads are above water. Like penguins, anhinga "fly" underwater to fish.  They pull their long wings in to their bodies, swimming at high speed with their shortened wings.  In an underwater pursuit, the anhinga darts it's long head forward and spears a fish, then bringing it to the surface to swallow. Like  cormorants, they spread their wings to dry in the sun.  Unfortunately, I couldn't catch this fellow drying his wings, but you can see the white feathers that spread like a cape when the wings are open.

The long neck and chest of the female anhinga are brown.

Wish I could have caught a picture like this one of a male anhinga!


Here is a link to read about the birds and see more pictures. (click on link)

We will be here a week or more.  There are a few packages coming in for us to pick up, we have friends here to visit, and, then, there is that dental work...