Memo from Vero

Being in a marina full time is like living on a boardwalk.  You are glued to the lamest things.  Yesterday, we watched three guys put a motor on a dinghy hoping something dramatic would happen, took videos of a sailboat which had lost its steering and learned that Pete, the diver, found an overboard cell phone.  

------------------------------------------------------
Latest photos...

 Moon over Atlantic

Bird on piling

Bird on beach sign

Bird breaking law

Bird silhouette 

Dog on boat

Boats in mooring field

Dinghy landing at dock

Dinghies landed at dock

Houses on Intracoastal Waterway

Balboita in slip

Indian River Queen at dock

 Fake locomotion

-----------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile....

Deer at Dreams Landing today (thanks, Nancy)

-------------------------------------------------------------

Latest research....

---------------------------------------------------------------------

That's all, folks...

.

He's back....

He swoops down on a piling right next to us and pretends he's just looking around.  But I know he has lyin' eyes.


 

Reader Karen ID-ed this guy as a Black-crowned Night Heron or, according to Erika, just a Night Heron.  A nature website says it's a stocky and compact heron which tucks its neck into its body creating a hunchback look.  Thus, the Bernie S. look-alike.  (I'm so bad.)

------------------------------------------------------

Catfish sting (and bite)

Last week a young kayaker paddled into the marina asking the dock master to call an ambulance.  Seems he caught a catfish and it stung him, resulting in an anaphylaxis reaction.  He was wheeled down the dock on a gurney with IV and oxygen. 

So...........I thought I'd do a little research.

Catfish are nasty.  They get their name from the whiskers.  However, it's not the whiskers that sting.  It's the fins, or spines on his back, that do the damage if you grab it the wrong way, which can cause tissue necrosis and gangrene requiring amputation.  

Catfish can also bite, chomp down, and than go into an alligator roll, tearing your skin.  Notice the frequent use of the word "can."

A slightly sadistic, slightly funny short video of person getting bitten by catfish. Warning: adult language at the end.  (copy/paste)
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZoQZWWwzLA

----------------------------------------------------------

Postcards...

Moored boat with warning, "do not raft up."  Who would want to?

Poodle on pedestal at marina

Florida strawberry.

-----------------------------------------------------

Plein Air at the Vero Marina...

Can you tell which boats she's painting?

Our kayak rack at the marina by Julie Grm of Vero

------------------------------------------------

More postcards...

What's Barry doing?  Hint:  it's not taking on fuel.

A noisy bar with a really bad band near the marina

Fundraiser for Vero's dog park.  Can you find the faces in the trees?

Stole this from Cruising Compass.  No place around here.
--------------------------------------------

And, finally to all the women out there beating a dead horse....

That's all folks....

On the Beach

It's February in Vero beach...

BARRY'S BEACH VIDEO

(copy and paste url into browser)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_8CMC209qo  


--------------------------------------------------

 Vicki and Sandy M. went to lunch at Citrus...

And we ordered sesame salad with chicken.

But what is this?

  It's more art than food, but we ate it.

---------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of "what is it?"

This thing shows up at dark, glides past our back porch, ends up eating fish and pooping on a neighbor's bimini.  

In daylight, he looks a little like Bernie Sanders.

-----------------------------------------------

On the road....

Vero sunsets from the car...

------------------------------------------------------------

That's all folks...

The Bee Keeper Cometh

You can take the boy out of the farm, but not the farm out of the boy. Or, whatever.  Barry plans to start a small bee farm on a friend's property on the Maryland Eastern Shore.  Barry has a history of bee keeping, at one time tended 70 hives spread out over northern New Jersey.  The deal was: Barry supplied the bees to pollinate an apple orchard; and, in exchange, he got the honey to sell.  Two tons of it to be exact.      

The new launch is officially April 7 when Barry will pick up two nucs (frames) of bees from the Maryland Agriculture Department. You can't just show up at the bee store and get a few.  He decided on Italian bees with the possibility later of adding a few Russians.  So the lesson is:  all bees are not the same.  I'm fantasizing that Italian bees are probably melodic in their buzzing and form flight patterns of Statues of David.  Pure bred Russian bees, on the other hand, are more like Vladimir Putin, more muscular and ready to take on anybody.  

I know, it's not a honey bee.

OK, for those of you now chomping at the bit to try out bee keeping, here's what the starter kit contains:  a helmet and veil, a smoker which blows smoke over them so they become confused and docile, and a hive with a starting foundation.  Last, but not least, come the bees.   

Starter kit

Did you know that bees have saved humanity by accident?  If it weren't for their messing around in blossoms and accidentally getting the pollen on their bushy bodies and then accidentally flying to some other blossom and accidentally dropping a few of the pollen pieces......well, we probably wouldn't be here reading this blog.

-------------------------------------------------------------


 Photos of the week...              
             1.  Lunch at....

Have no idea what this is, but it's part of the restaurant.

A long-time customer

         2.  Night time view off of Balboita's back porch...

-------------------------------------------------------------

Video:  Irma damage to neighbor's bar in St. Thomas... 

My son Jim's neighbors in Annapolis own the oldest beach bar in St. Thomas, located in mangroves next to a boat yard.  This video shows damage to the boats up on steel braces where they are typically getting painted or repaired, as well as damage to the neighbor's beach bar.  Pretty dumbfounding.  Take a walk-through with them. (copy and paste)https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pCAVj3y2qf8Y6MiU0B6Nl44KXFAFLz4q/view?usp=sharing.  

-------------------------------------------------------------

This week's plan...

We're leaving Balboita in Vero for the summer, stored on the hard at a Ft. Pierce boat yard.  The Vero hillbillies -- Vicki, Barry, Kota and Skipper -- are then driving home to Annapolis to start the bee farm in April.   Among other things.  Late next fall, Balboita will return to Vero's city marina, available for the hillbillies when they feel like it.

This plan may change next week.  

--------------------------------------------------------------

That's all folks....

.