September 20th 2008

This year’s International Coastal Cleanup will be held September 20th. But this is more than a one-day event it’s a year-round movement. The ocean is essential to the health of everything on our planet. But harmful impacts like climate change and overfishing are taking its toll. The International Coastal Cleanup provides a direct tangible way to make a difference. Trash in the ocean kills countless seabirds, marine mammals and sea turtles each year through ingestion and entanglement. The International Coastal Cleanup brings awareness and action to one of the largest problems we face. The 2007 International Coastal Cleanup Data Report is a global snapshot of the hazardous effects of trash in the ocean.

Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup is the world’s largest volunteer event of its kind. Last year, 378,000 volunteers from 76 countries and 45 states cleared six million pounds of trash from oceans and waterways and recorded every piece of trash collected.

All Scout Troops, Youth Church Groups, School groups and concerned citizens are encouraged to come out and join in. The beaches to be included will be as follows: Round Island Oceanside, 2200 Highway A1A, Sebastian Inlet – Southside, 14251 NW A1A, Golden Sands Beach, 10350 N A1A, JayCee Beach and South Beach.

Pelican Island Audubon Society asks everyone to please come out and volunteer a little of your time and effort to clean-up our beaches! Any questions regarding the clean-up can be directed to the PIAS office at 772-567-3520 or piaudubon@bellsouth.net

Tell a friend about the coastal cleanup.

The days of ”Zero Beach,” as the town was dubbed during more staid times, seem to have passed with a flurry of building that has hit Vero Beach in the aftermath of two serious hurricanes in 2004.  The Miami Herald recently ran a feature on Vero Beach, noting that upgrades include recent expansions to the Riverside Theatre, which hosts performances and speakers like businessman Steve Forbes and comedian Paula Poundstone, and Vero Beach Museum of Art, currently hosting an exhibition of portraits by John Singer Sargent, Alex Katz and other American artists.

When music icon Gloria Estefan purchased and remodeled her first hotel outside Miami-Dade County, she bypassed trendy haunts and the forever-regal Palm Beach in favor of quieter, less well-known Vero Beach. Her 94-room Costa D’ Este Beach Resort is slated to open by early summer.

Yet this seaside town is still a cozy village where hotels are about the only towers allowed. People come not because it’s anything like the rest of Florida, but because it isn’t.

Vero ”is like Florida used to be” said recent visitor Dawn Hirsch of West Palm Beach.

Meticulously tended flower beds edge Ocean Drive, where upscale shops sit just steps from the beach. Live oaks shelter homes and businesses fronted by long grassy carpets. The town has a staunch, timeless feel about it — much as it must have when Waldo Sexton built his famously funky Driftwood Resort here in 1935.

Click here to read the full article…

Vero Beach — zip code 32960 — isn’t going anywhere. It may even be reincarnated as someone else’s Spring Training base. Next year, it likely will at least host some country’s pre-World Baseball Classic workouts.

But it’s farewell to Dodgertown. Barring an unforeseen construction glitch in their Glendale, Ariz., destination, “Dem Bums” will draw the Dodgertown shades with Monday afternoon’s exhibition tilt against the Houston Astros.

Dodgertown is its own oxymoron. Charming, obsolete. Scenic, blighted. Comfortable, inconvenient. Hate to leave, love to go.

It has been the crib for generations of Dodgers players, and generations of Brooklyn and Los Angeles fans who have flocked to see them at this redeveloped vacant World War II naval air base. But it’s time for them all to come out from behind the Oz curtain and join the real world. It’s time to run after the parade that has passed them by, in that new $80 million Cactus League complex they will share with the Chicago White Sox.

Time to pull the covers. But, oh, what a storybook place it was.

Click here for more of this story at mlb.com… 

The Vero Beach Art Club proudly presents the 57th Annual “UNDER THE OAKS” national, juried fine art show in Vero Beach Florida on March 7, 8 & 9, 2008 at Riverside Park. The largest public event on the Treasure Coast drawing over 80,000 visitors. The art world acclaims this three day show among America’s finest. Mark your calendar today!

The show is free! Bring the whole family. Come browse at leisure. Over 200 top artists, carefully selected from several hundred applicants from all over America compete for best of show and first, second and third awards in each media while exhibiting and selling their original art.

• Oil/Acrylic
• Watercolor/Pastel
• Graphics/Mixed Media
• Digital/Photography
• Sculpture
• Pottery
• Jewelry
• Creative Crafts

Click here for more info… 

The Boys of Summer sat in front of their lockers Friday morning, slowly buttoning up their white Dodgers home uniforms for the last time.

They’re all in their early 80s now. But Duke Snider, Carl Erskine and Ralph Branca will never grow old for generations of baseball fans who followed their exploits as the scrappy Brooklyn Dodgers of the early to mid-1950s.

The Boys of Summer.

Their arms may be shot, and their legs and power long gone, but there’s nothing wrong with their minds. They’re sharp as tacks.

As they dressed for the last day of Dodgertown fantasy baseball camp in Vero Beach, Fla., they talked about what this place – an old Navy base that Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley converted to a sprawling spring-training ground in 1948 – has meant to them.

How it’s going to be sad to leave these old baseball fields, bunkhouses and locker rooms where they began their careers 60 years ago as young men and rose to the top of the baseball world.

Next season, the Dodgers will move their spring-training facility closer to Los Angeles in Glendale, Ariz.

But that’s next year. Friday, they took one last walk around Dodgertown with me to relive old memories that will never die.

Erskine stood on the same mound where Branch Rickey, the legendary Dodgers general manager who brought Jackie Robinson up from the minors and integrated major league baseball, watched him pitch with an eagle eye.

Click here for more of this story… 

According to published reports, the Baltimore Orioles signed an option with Indian River County in Vero Beach, Fla., to replace the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Dodgertown area. It’s not clear when the Orioles would move into the new spring training headquarters, since the Dodgers are currently waiting for a new spring training facility to be built in Glendale, Ariz.

“I have an option agreement with a Major League Baseball team, where I can only speak to that particular team,” Baird said Wednesday.

It is uncertain when the Orioles would move to Vero Beach because the Dodgers have not said when they’re moving to their new site in Glendale, Ariz. Dodgers Director of Public Relations Josh Rawitch said last week it likely will be a few weeks or more before they can determine a date, because Glendale still needs to approve the construction timeline recently provided by the construction manager.

Click here for the full story…

I found this interesting post about Vero Beach, Florida: Fun for Even the Old and Unhip over at gonomad.com

Vero Beach and the rest of Indian River County Florida are a far cry from the fashionista-laden, self conscious show-off atmosphere that can make Miami a bummer. And the beaches are just as nice, even if they’re not topless.

Ok, ok, there are those who love Miami’s hipness. That cool South Florida feeling, those many Cubanos, and that sizzling nightlife. Contrast that with ‘Zero Beach,’ as some locals jokingly referred to the city of 21,000. Here the lights go out at 10 pm, and there’s more emphasis on outdoor activities like kayaking or early morning beach strolling.

Our day began on a hot Vero afternoon, driving the long and straight Highway 60 from Orlando, past endless traffic lights til we reached a big bridge. We looked down and followed sailboats lazily navigating the calm waters below.

We were entering Orchid Island, a barrier island with the intracoastal waterway flowing on one side and the wild Atlantic on the other.

Click here to read the entire post…

Stumbled across the neat post warning fellow boaters of Velco Beach (better known as Vero Beach).

“The nickname Velcro Beach is used with affection, in that if you are not careful you will stay here. This Velcro tendency is especially true for first time cruisers whose trip south have not gone all that well. Vero Beach Marina offers a secure harbor for $11.00 a day. The personnel and facilities ashore are world class. The community is safe, friendly and inviting. The weather is great. Why not stay right here?”

Click here for more of this post…

Vero Beach Municipal Marina provides efficient first class service at reasonable cost to resident and visiting boaters in a manner that reflects well on the character of the City of Vero Beach.

Located on the East side of the Indian River Lagoon, just north of the Merrill Barber (Hwy 60) Bridge, the City of Vero Beach prides itself on being a center for maritime information and hospitality for over 3,000 visiting boats each year. These visiting boaters spend a phenomenal 20,000 overnights with us. Rental moorings and slips are available on a daily or monthly basis (call for monthly details). Gasoline, diesel, and pump out services are available on our 70 ft. fuel dock. Approaches to the fuel dock are 8-10 ft. Facilities and services include free bus service to town, Laundromat, TV lounge, WiFi, mail drop and pick-up, bicycle and vehicle parking, restrooms, showers, trash disposal, waste oil disposal, and a park with picnic shelters and barbecues.

Location

City Marina at Marker 139 on the Intracoastal Waterway
3611 Rio Vista Boulevard, Vero Beach, FL 32963

Phone:  772-231-2819
Voice Mail: 772-978-4960
Fax: 772-231-6893
Radio: Monitoring VHF CH 16 working CH 66A
Business Hours: 0700 to 1900

Family Fun Magazine recently named Vero Beach Florida as one of 20 Great Family Beaches in the U.S.

From their review: Divided by the Indian River, Vero Beach serves up family lodging and restaurants on the mainland side and, on the ocean side, beaches as far as you can see. Click here to see the Top 20 Great Family Beaches.