5 May, 2015

Goooood Morning

Pulled in to Cocoa around 1430 after an uneventful ride up the ditch.  It’s nice to have the dolphins back with us, playing in our bow wave.  I was surprised at how few there were in the Bahamas, the pictures would have better out there with the crystal clear water.  Anyway, we got the hook down in the west anchorage off Cocoa.  The big hook here was S.F. Travis hardware store.  They’ve been in business for the last hundred years, and supply clients ranging from NASA to the home doityourselfers.  The current owner does business in much the same way as his grandfather.  Over 3,000 customers have accounts there, and the store still does deliveries (although not by barge along the water these days).  Unfortunately, the store hours run from Monday through Friday, so we were unable to do much more than peek through the windows.  We’ll be back.  There were lots of little shops and boutiques to visit, so we did.  The flip-flop shop had a sale going, so I acquired a new pair of Reefs and the Admiral  some dress Sanuks for 75% off.  After wearing my old ones nearly every day for the past year, they were unceremoniously deposited in the trash on the way out of the store.  Back at the boat, the wind had picked up out of the East, driving waves into the anchorage.  With a forecast of increasing winds, we decided to pull anchor, go under the bridge, and anchor on the East side of the ICW.  Moving was a good call, and we had a pleasant night on the hook.  Anticipating a long day, we had the anchor up and were underway by 0630. Finally a Manatee haven! The Haulover canal near Cape Canaveral was full of Manatees, basking in the warm water.  They’re really tough to get a picture of, as the water is dark, and only a bit of the beasts are out of the water at any given moment.  We did get some good looks, though.  Through New Smyrna, we waved at the gang at the city marina as we glided by.  After Suzanne’s call, the bridge tender delayed his opening for a couple of minutes to let us catch up to the group of boats awaiting transit.  A few miles south of Daytona, we were overtaken and passed by an old runabout with 2 adults and 2 kids on board, pushed along by an antique motor which sounded notsogood.  A mile later, one of the men is paddling the boat with a kayak paddle and not making much headway in the current.  None of them had a life preserver on, and they were a couple of miles from anywhere.  After throwing them a line, we towed them to a city boat ramp a couple miles up the Waterway.  By 1600, The Girl was through all of the Daytona bridges and ready to drop anchor north of town.  “Erben Renewal” was there, so we dropped next to her.  When we got up at 0700, Steve and Julia had already taken off, and were nearly out of sight, on their way to St. Augustine.  Since we were only traveling 20 miles, we had our tea and chilled before getting underway at 0800.

-Later