November 7, 2011

We left Titusville early, and had another beautiful day, sunny and warm with a few passing showers that only lasted 10 minutes max and after they always left a rainbow. We had dolphins off of our bow today too, and even though we see hundreds of them each day, I never get tired of seeing them.
We had planned on anchoring just North of Vero Beach. Right near the anchorage is a small dock that is listed in our guide as being only $10 per/night, usually these places are taken up pretty quickly by other cruisers so we never plan on staying at one of them. When we came up to the dock it was empty, so we decided to take advantage of it.
The dock is called "Jones Fruit Dock", it is part of the land that was owned by the Jones Family who had a citrus grove. They use to sell the fruit commercially, and also if you bought fruit from them you could stay at the dock for the low price of $10. Years back hurricanes had destroyed the citrus plants on the farm, and they were no longer able to sell commercially. Dick Jones who had been the owner at the time had still allowed people to stay at his docks for the minimal fee of $10 plus he would usually bring you a free bag of fruit.
Recently, Dick Jones has passed away, but before he did he had sold his 16 acres of land to the county for a large sum and they let him stay in his home until he passed. The dock is sort of in limbo, the county is thinking of using it for environmental purposes. The gentleman who is the care taker (Scott) came to see us when we pulled in, he gave us the run down of what happened and told us that he wasn't really concerned if we paid or not.
He also gave us a small tour of the area, and showed us the inside of a house that was for sale next to his. Most of the area around Jones land is big gated communities, and golf courses, except for the small part that we were showed by Scott which is all dirt road and privately owned homes. It was peaceful and quiet, and almost felt like we were walking down a dirt road on a small tropical island. It is these experiences that we would never have had if not for being on a boat, I think there is something kind of special about that.