Tripometer – 15,797 mi
Gas Gauge – 1257.666 gal
Location – Sebastian Inlet State Park, Sebastian, FL
Lodging – $25
Cans of OFF – 4
Last night we were eaten by noseeums all night long. By morning we were furious as we were convinced our trailer didn’t have noseeum screen. Subsequent nights since then have demonstrated that, no, we were just stupid as we were setting up our rig last night and left the door open too much. We’ll be much more careful from here on out. Nasty bastards.
We woke this morning to a beautiful day. The temperature was in the 70s and 80s all day. We spent the morning simply enjoying the weather and investigating the local area. After breakfast at a little café about a mile down the road, we drove into Long Point Park Campground, the island based park we mentioned yesterday. We found a nice strong cell signal throughout the park and immediately made reservations for all of next week. The site we’ve selected is gorgeous. Next week our trailer will be about 1.5 feet above sea level and the back edge our trailer will be about 5 feet from the water. Ranger will have his own beach to swim from and given all of the activity in the area, the fishing looks amazing. Honestly, we didn’t expect to be this lucky. Finding excellent camping in Florida this time of year can be extremely difficult.
Ranger has been almost unbearable whenever we get within smelling distance of the water for the past several days. He really needs a swim. Caving in to his whining we went in search of a dog beach somewhere near the campground but we found that every beach in the area has huge signs banning pets on the beach. For that matter, they ban seemingly most of the pleasurable activities on the beach except walking, sunbathing and swimming. Returning to the state park we asked where we could swim the dog and they directed us to the western edge of the park. The ranger explained that rules require we leave Ranger on the leash to swim, but said, with a wink of her eye that the rangers rarely make it out to the point and it was worth the risk to let him off the leash. He was more than ecstatic to go swimming again. It’s going to be a long cold winter for this pup once we get back to winter in Maryland…
Knowing now that we would be staying at the waters edge for several days we stopped by the marina in Sebastian Inlet that has kayaks for rent. At $75 per day it’s unlikely that we’ll be renting from them, but while we were there we quizzed the desk attendant on local sights and things to do. She recommended that we have an early dinner in Vero beach and to be done in time for the annual Christmas parade at 6pm tonight. She suggested a restaurant called Waldo’s which has excellent food and drinks and is located right on the beach. Perfect!
Our dinner at Waldo’s was good, but generally unremarkable except for an American flag planted firmly in the ocean some 200 feet out from shore. The waitress explained that it is attached to the boiler from the wreck of the S.S. Breconshire. The Breconshire was built for Great Britain in 1833 and wrecked here on April 30, 1894. All that remains of the wreck is the ships boiler which lies very close to the surface and requires a mark to prevent additional wrecks. It has become a yearly tradition for some of the locals to swim out to the boiler on the 4th of July to install an American Flag on the mark. That’s pretty cool!
At 5:45ish, the entire restaurant and bar emptied as if by magic. We proceeded to the street out front to watch the Christmas Parade. Neither of us have ever been away from home for Christmas, much less enjoyed Christmas in a tropical location, so the whole concept of watching a Christmas parade in shorts and t-shirts seemed really odd. The parade was actually really well done and very well attended. Our favorite float had to have been the lifeguards float. Having been lifeguards for many years, we were not surprised to see that they had several coolers on board the float and had clearly pre-gamed the event!
As pleased as we are with our current setup, we went to sleep this evening really looking forward to moving to our new campsite across the inlet tomorrow. Ranger has no idea that his world is about to get so much better!