Cocoa, Vero Beach and Stuart

Hello again.  I know some of you have been wondering if or when I would write another post.  I'm sorry for the lapse.

We've been having a great time as we've continued to travel further south down through central (east coast) Florida, which is also called the Treasure Coast.

We went to Cocoa on my birthday and enjoyed a two day stay there in a beautiful anchorage just in front of this beautiful marina and the quaint little town of Cocoa.

 From Cocoa we traveled on down to Vero Beach, which has been nick-named Velcro Beach because all the cruising boaters love it so much that once there you do not want to leave - and it is true!  We ended up staying there almost two weeks!  The marina is great, so is the beach and really great shopping!  They have a free bus system that stops right at the marina office twice each hour - once for a trip to the beach and once for the route that takes you right to all the good shopping.  It was the easiest place to get around that we have visited and that is so nice when you have no car!

Finally, all the snowbirds started catching up to us while at Vero and we met so many nice people from all over the northeast who make this trip south every year!  Many of them will stay in Vero until after Thanksgiving and then wait for a nice weather window to make the crossing of the Gulf Stream and on to the Bahamas for the winter.  Others will go the Keys for the winter and then there are also some who will go through the St. Lucie River, across Lake Okeechobee and on to Fort Myers on the gulf coast.  It's been really interesting to talk to different people who have many years of experience doing this trip and we are learning a lot!

The mooring field at Vero Beach.

Vero Beach

I forgot to write about the manatees that we saw at Titusville.  We have been traveling in Manatee Zones, which basically just restricts power boaters from traveling at high speeds because their propellers are dangerous to the manatee for several weeks now.  We have not really encountered any near our boat while motoring but we sure got a good closeup look at several who hang out around that marina!  They love to drink fresh water - as opposed to saltwater and when we washed our boat one afternoon we had several - I believe we counted five one time coming up around the bottom of our boat to drink the water running off when we rinsed it!  We snapped several pictures but honestly it was difficult to get a really good shot but here are a couple.  They are really ugly creatures!

 Here they are between two boats on our dock.

Once we finally left Vero Beach we made our way on down to Stuart and just before arriving there on Rick's birthday we saw the most beautiful emerald green water!  We were at the St. Lucie inlet and it is the most beautiful water we have seen so far!  It should just keep getting prettier and prettier as we continue going south!

Stuart is a great little town and there was lots going on over the week-end with a reggae concert on the waterfront as well as a farmer's/craft market.  They have revitalized the downtown waterfront section and it is filled with wonderful shops, art galleries, restaurants and bars.  Very nice place to visit!

I may not write much of anything until after Christmas and New Years but I will pick back up after the busyness of the holidays is over.  We will be spending our Thanksgiving with ex-next door neighbors in Youngsville who now live in West Palm Beach!  We are really looking forward to seeing them!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Moving On

As I said - we really enjoyed exploring St. Augustine but after nine days a change of scenery and pace was really instore.  We traveled not too far south to Marineland, which turned out to be not only the dolphin water park but also a very nice marina - both of which are located in the town of Marineland, FL!  Because it was such a nice place we ended up staying there for a week and thoroughly enjoyed it! 

The water park originally opened in 1937 and used to feature performances with the dolphins very much like you now see at Sea World.  Now, it's primarily a place where you can view the dophins through glassed tanks - or oceanariums - or you can pay to interact with them such as feeding or swimming with them.  We didn't actually do any of that but we did spend some time one afternoon observing them in the huge tanks.  They are very entertaining to watch because they like to show off!

One of the things we liked best about this marina was that you can walk right across the street and you're at the beach!  We had fantastic weather the entire week and we spent a lot of time walking and sitting on the beach!  We even found a few pieces of sea glass!

They have great bike paths in this area so we took advantage and rode every morning.  Some it even goes right along the top of the dunes so you can see the ocean as you ride!

They also had a farmer's market every Tuesday morning where we bought some delicious homemade breads and pastries along with fruits and vegetables.

It was a great week and of course some more beautiful sunsets that I cannot resist but then it was time to move on again!

Daytona Beach was our next stop but we only spent one night there because we have been there many times in the past.  I did snap a few pictures as we passed through.

From Daytona we went south through the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on our way to Titusville.  The refuge is very large and we were in it almost all day!  We saw dolphins the entire way as well as many, many birds.  We also spotted our first mannatee and our first alligator!  I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of either of them but I did make one of these pelicans.

Many of you have visited Kennedy Space Center so you know how huge the building there is - well, we spotted it on the horizon long before we realized what we were actually seeing!  We were looking at it for hours and hours that afternoon and then we anchored and could still see it across the water!

This anchorage was just north of Titusville where we ended up staying in a marina several days due to very high winds.  It was a good place to visit with a beautiful astronaut memorial park and a great space museum!  Here are a few pictures from the park.

Me and President Kennedy!

 John Glenn's handprints.