Trip #11 St. Augustine, FL - Stuart, FL

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

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 little ship-shaping up, we went to the town of Stuart and had lunch on the Stuart Riverwalk at ‪Mulligan’s‬ Boat House on the deck. It was situated right by the Sunday Farmer’s Market and there was a good band playing on the dock.  We walked the town and took it all in, then went back to the boat.  There was a fairly nice restaurant right in the marina so we decided to make it easy and eat on the deck just a few steps away from the boat.  

We were up again early for our final day on the boat to do laundry and move the boat 200 yards across the cove to Hinckley Marine where the boat will be hauled and stored until we return after the new year.  By noon we had called an Uber and had begun our two hour drive to the Four Seasons Orlando where we will be spending the next three days touring Disney World and Universal Studios.  We are really looking forward to seeing Harry Potter at Universal Studios and the World of Avatar in Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

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 Beach Marina.  Vero Beach is much fancier than the places we’ve been to up to this point. 

After a zippy lunch at the Lemon Tree, we wanted to see manatees so we drove 30 minutes to the Manatee Observation Center, but we were disappointed... no manatees present :/.  So on the way home we stopped at the Vero Beach Art Museum. There was a Maurice Sendak exhibition, so we got to relive a little childhood memories, both ours and reading to our kids with Max and the Wild Things along with ‘sipping once, sipping twice, sipping chicken soup with rice! (I loved that book when I was little). 

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 along with us.  Tom, the driver was very happy as he said he was 67 years old and had never been on an airboat.  He now wants to take his granddaughter on a ride.  Good on ya Melbourne Charlie! 

The airboats are amazing vehicles that glide over anything!  The airboat was invented in Utah marsh by rangers that wanted to study and protect the bird life of the marsh.  Prior to the introduction in 1943, refuge biologists had to either walk through shallow water and deep, sticky mud or push unpowered flat-bottom boats with long poles. 

Our guide Charlie drove us up an 8 foot grassy bank and onto a trail and then back down into the marsh with no trouble. We cruised through the palm trees and reeds of the marsh and saw several gators and baby gators, water lily fields and birds.  It was really nice to be out in the sun and nature again.  We stopped in town for lunch at The Casba and then we took a long march over the bridge to see the long stretch of beach on the Atlantic. 

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 amazing ‘farm to field’ lunch at The Nomad Cafe in Melbourne.  Due to the rain, we went back to the boat for an afternoon movie - ‘Deadmen Tell No Tales’.   At dusk, Jody and I walked out to the point to see if we could spot dolphins or manatees that are known to frequent the area, but none were about. Dave Shirtzinger, who now lives in Cape Canaveral, drove out to have cocktails on the boat and we all headed off for dinner at the Chart House. 

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 large high ceilinged room where we watched a film about the the program leading up to creating the space shuttle.   As the film was ending, the screen that it was being shown on disappeared to reveal the space shuttle itself.  It was pretty awe inspiring.  Before this point, I enjoyed the tour and seeing the rockets and grounds and learning a little more about all the programs, but I was really moved by the innovation, grace and beauty of the shuttle itself.  It’s definitely worth a trip out to see.  We then slid down a simulation of the chute that the astronauts slide out of the shuttle back to earth on which was quite a fun little deal. 

On the drive back to Titusville our Uber driver pointed out an alligator floating in the roadside canal. Our first alligator sighting!  We stopped in town for a fun little dinner and grapefruit beers at Playa Linda Brewery. The waitress and bar tender told us that Playa Linda is a gorgeous white sand turquoise water beach that’s a locals secret. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t conducive to a beach day.

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, after a challenging docking due to the wind masterfully handled by Captain John and crew.  We wanted some exercise so we headed out to the Enchanted Forest Sanctuary for a hike which includes five habitat types: Oak scrub, mesic and hydric hammock, wet prairie, and pine flatwood.   It was pretty and enjoyable, with absolutely no one was there due to the weather of the last few weeks.  Jody enjoyed seeing ‘air plants’ that she likes to try to keep alive at home just growing willie nillie all around and under foot. We were unable to walk several of the trails as after heading down each for about 1/2 mile, each time we ran into a flooded trail that was impassable without wading, which we didn’t want to do for several reasons, not the least of which was alligators. We stayed on the sandy ridge trail for a loop and had a nice time.

We had dinner at the Dixie Crossing, highly recommended by several Uber drivers (one driver from our previous days in Daytona Beach told us he and his wife took the 40 minute drive a couple times a year as it was their favorite).  We were greeted by a 5 foot high smiling Rock Shrimp statue. It was a more casual dining experience than we were expecting, but apparently still the best Titusville has to offer.

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 arrived at Halifax Yacht Club and immediately headed off for lunch at Tia’s Mexican restaurant then to the Daytona International Speedway tour. Originally known as the Daytona Beach Road Course it was a race track that was instrumental in the formation of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, or NASCAR.  It became famous as the location where fifteen world land speed records were set. Today the speedway includes multiple layouts for racing: including a 2.5-mile tri-oval, a 3.56-mile sports car course, a 2.95-mile motorcycle course, and a 1,320-foot karting and motorcycle flat-track. The track's 180-acre infield includes the 29-acre  Lake Lloyd, which has hosted powerboat racing.  The stands have the capacity to hold 180,000 fans.

The corner banking was so extreme on the track that if your car wasn’t at atleast 70 mph it would just slide off into the infield. 

Back at the boat, boys cleaned the windows then we had cocktails and walked into town for dinner.  We went to the boardwalk and got a look at the 23 mile beach where the racing began in the 1920’s. We stopped in an arcade to play a little Skee-Ball where the Rick and Jody team were victorious, which must have angered the gods as when we went to walk further down the boardwalk, the rain came in a wind blown sideways deluge!  We scurried in through the lobby of a HIlton and out the other side so we could use the large buildings that line the water as a buffer. We checked out the Hemingway Bar, and then caught an Uber to dine at Zappy’s Italian Restaurant. 

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 that they had removed for last week’s hurricane, so we had to make do with looking at some prints of the original settlements from the 1560’s.  We noticed a lot of very large alligators in the depictions of the area - the natives used to hunt them by listening for the very loud monster noises alligators make and they would take a spear they made from a tree And cram it down the alligators open mouth, flip him, and gut him.  They were so big, they had to use a tree trunk!  We also noticed the irony of a print of the natives kneeling in front of an obelisk that the French had given them.  They kneeled in thanks, offering fruits and abundance from the land.  Little did they know the fate that awaited them from welcoming foreigners :(

We grabbed lunch at Prohibition Kitchen, then headed out to ride the Old Town Trolley for a historic tour of the city.

Midway through the tour the rain resumed pelted us as we wove through the town, but the plastic ponchos they gave us provide so protection and so we persevered!   The history of the town is rich, but the ‘tacky’ Floridian culture overlay takes away from it in a big way.  An example: the oldest tree is a big giant oak tree that is over 600 years old and absolutely gorgeous.  And it’s in the middle of a ‘f***ing’ Howard Johnson’s parking lot with about a 10 foot space around it before asphalt and cars!  So sad as it’s a tree that should have a beautiful park (like they have in Savannah) all for it’s fabulous self.

After wine and cocktails on the boat, we headed out for dinner at the Preserve - a farm to table restaurant in an old restored Victorian eara house then headed home to play Rummikub and get some sleep.

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 the first ice factory in Florida!  Our waiter was very knowledgeable about the history of the old building with it’s 4’ thick concrete walls and metal I-beams for sliding ice chunks around, but the best part was the food.... we had a hot pretzel appetizer that was delectable and the vegetables were cooked perfectly. 

We made friends with some youngsters from a wedding party who came in a herd after the wedding and generally had a nice evening.