Shoals and noisy nights Lindsay McRory April 7, 1996 The anchor came up and we were off. The trip to Vero Beach was a straightforward motor. In typical Florida Intercoastal Waterway fashion, the area around Sebastian Inlet shallowed to six feet for a couple hundred yards. So the entire passage amounted to 50 miles of motoring boredom and 300 yards of sniffing around shallow water. Vero Beach is the beginning of the more densely populated section of Florida. Anchoring here is prohibited by municipal bylaw, as it is in most places further south. Most cruisers think this is completely unjust and complain bitterly about it. I am of two minds about it. There is not that much room on this part of the Intercoastal. Dropping an anchor in the main channel can put you in spitting range of someone's backyard. If I owned a house on the waterway I wouldn't mind the overnight stays, but if someone dropped a hook and took up permanent residence on a beat-up old garbage scow, it would be a little hard to accept. There are lots of marinas that provide a slip for the night, but at a dollar or more per foot, plus taxes, it adds up. Vero Beach has an excellent solution to the problem. They provide mooring buoys for $4 a night. There are still anchorages to be found between Vero Beach and Ft. Lauderdale, but they are few and far between. I had always though of anchoring out as quiet and peaceful ... until now. Last night we were visited by a couple of drum fish. They like to hang around under boats and make a loud humming sound. It is a very peculiar sound that resonates through the entire boat. When the drum fish leave, the sheepshead fish move in and start eating at the bits of eel grass growing on the water line. It sounds like light scratching on the side of the boat. It's not enough to keep you awake, it just sounds odd. The new gear is working well. We haven't been able to test the watermaker yet, because of the dirty Intercoastal water. Only clean ocean water can be desalinated, not harbor water. Refrigeration is our weakest point of self-sufficiency. The only problem we are having is with the engine-mounted fridge compressor. This powerful beast has been non-functional most of the time despite two separate repair people coming out to look at it. We have a backup with the smaller A/C fridge compressor/condenser. We can run it from the generator or the inventor. The only downside is it draws 24 amps. So the troublesome engine-mounted compressor will most likely wait until we are in the Bahamas, where R12 freon is cheaper and more abundant. We are contemplating picking up a set of refrigeration gauges before we leave Florida. We are now waiting out a slow-moving storm system that so far is not living up to expectations.