Touring With Friends

On a bit of a stormy day, we headed north to visit friends Bruce and Judy in Vero Beach. Bruce and Judy owned a house that was destroyed on Elbow Cay during Hurricane Dorian, so this winter they have rented a condo in Vero. Since we are not familiar with the area, they graciously gave us a fantastic tour, including Sebastian Inlet. This is a small inlet with a bridge that goes over it, so only small boats can transit from the ocean to the Intracoastal Waterway in the Indian River. It was pretty wild on the day that we were there, with wind and tide opposing, so the boat we saw come in had to really power through the waves.

Once they got through the waves at the mouth of the inlet, the water was much calmer. An interesting note is that the center section of this pier is a grate so you can hear and see the waves passing under you. It almost made me dizzy!

The four of us watched a pod of dolphins under the bridge for quite awhile. They kept going past the state park's swim area buoys and pushing fish up into the shallows. There were a few young dolphins too, including a new calf with its dorsal fin still curled over from being born.

The walkway out to the ocean fishing pier had a weather station and webcams set up.

The end of the pier was the hot spot for fishing. We saw the man on the right (in the beige shirt) wrestle with a very large fish that others had to come help him reel in, but then it threw the hook at the last minute. We would have loved to have seen what it was.

Bruce and I watched the surfers, although the ocean side was calm with a few big swells.

We had such a good time that we didn't make it to the gardens or educational center that Judy had planned for us to go to. That means we can look forward to returning to the area!