October 09, 2017
Length of Trip: 10 days Nautical Miles Traveled: 210 Hours of Cruising: 18 hours Longest Cruising Day: 5 hours, 60 NM, St. Augustine, FL - Daytona Beach, FL Pleasant Surprise: Vero Beach, FL Biggest Disappointment: The weather the first three days of the trip Favorite Destination: Melbourne, FL Favorite Activity: Tour of Kennedy Space Center Favorite Meal: Nomad Café, Melbourne, FL
October 08, 2017
We left again early this moring by 8:30 a.m. for a beautiful sunny cruise to Pirate’s Cove Marina & Resort in Port Salerno, FL on the southern shores of St. Lucie river inlet. It was named "Salerno" because the main settlers were emigrants from the Italian city of the same name. It’s next door to Stuart, FL which is known for it’s fishing tournaments. The homes and neighborhoods we were cruising by were much more fancy than all of Florida we’ve seen so far further north. After a...
October 07, 2017
After John saw Jody and Rick off at 4 a.m. to catch a plane for their white party in Sacramento, he went to the laundromat to do some laundry and by 8 a.m. we were ready to untie the lines. There were teeny frogs the size of my thumb nail on the deck and on the lines, so I had to be careful. They were really cute. We were back on the ICW again and this time it was a beautiful day! Dolphins were everywhere, the sun was out, the water calm and we had a lovely cruise and an easy docking at Vero...
October 06, 2017
Friday morning the sun was finally out! We took and Uber out to Three Folks Marsh for an airboat tour of the unique beauty and hopefully spot some gators. The people in Florida are very friendly people we have noticed this consistently. When our Uber driver was dropping us off, we realized that the airboat tour drop was kind of remote and that it could be difficult to get an Uber to pick us up out there. So after some deliberation, Captain Charlie asked the Uber driver if he wanted to just come...
October 05, 2017
We left early the next morning from Titusville so we could get out of the tricky harbor before the wind picked up. We were out on the intercoastal by 7:30 and in light rain to our next destination, Melbourne, FL. Melbourne was settled in 1877 and by 1885, the town had 70 people! In the 1920s. C. P. Singleton, a Harvard University zoologist, discovered the bones of a mammoth on his property along Crane Creek. We had a smooth trip despite the rain and an early arrival by 11 a.m. We walked to an...
October 04, 2017
The next morning we went for a walk and then got ready for our big day at the Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s launch headquarters. We had a wonderful tour of the grounds with the giant ‘crawl way’ used to get the space shuttle or rocket from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to one of 3 launch pads. The launch pads have to be over 3 miles away from where the launch operations are as the blast and heat are too strong to be closer. We toured the launch control rooms and then headed to a...
October 03, 2017
The next morning we were up early to cruise to Titusville, FL, home of NASA. Because of the wind, the passage was a bit choppy and crouch even in the Intercoastal so I got out the lifejackets to demonstrate how to operate them. I also demonstrated the locator beacon that I attached to my life jacket. Thankfully we were on the Intercoastal Waterway rather than the Atlantic where there were reportedly 14 foot seas. We didn’t need the beacon or the lifejackets and safely arrive in Titusville,...
October 02, 2017
The next morning we set off early for Daytona Beach, FL. We all took a seat on the fly bridge and had a lovely four hour cruise with good weather. One bridge we had to have ‘drawn’ for us was having some repair done and as we cruised under the lifted section, we were surprised to see several men clinging to it protected from falling with nets! After we cruised through, we could see what looked like a mile long stretch of cars a standstill due to our needing to get under the bridge. We...
October 01, 2017
After a rainy night, we had a leisurely morning (well, Jody and I did, and of course John and Rick were were out working away preparing the boat for our upcoming voyages) and then headed to check out the town of St. Augustine. While it’s usually crowded, due to the rain, we had the city to ourselves. We toured Flagler college with it’s Spanish Colonial architecture with ornate, beautiful details and stopped by the Governer’s House museum which had not yet brought all it’s artifacts back...
September 30, 2017
We were up at 3 a.m. to catch a plane to Jacksonville, FL. We arrived after uneventful flight to our marina destination in the pouring rain and proceeded to cart our groceries and luggage 1/4 mile through very puddly yard full of boats stored everywhere. After settling in, we walked to dinner at Ice Plant. The restaurant is an old warehouse on the water where they used to create ice blocks to keep fish fresh for transport onto the railroads and ships by compressing ammonia. It was apparently...