07/26/2011, Harbor Town Marina Cape Canaveral
Harbortown Marina Cape Canaveral
We arrived just after lunch today. We have had a lovely 12 day cruise up from the Florida Keys. The weather was hot but no storm activity and calm waters. We anchored most nights and its always lovely being alone in a beautiful anchorage.
Last night, our last on the hook for a while was at MM925 at Rock Point. This is an anchorage we enjoyed on the way down to Marathon. Al deployed the dinghy this time so we could discover the island. Bridget enjoyed the outing Swimming when the water got too deep on the sand bar that was longer than 2 football fields. Once back on the boat I had a swim, after I rinsed off in our sun shower and settled in with a glass of wine, we were visited by three large manatee, it was awesome, I could have been swimming with them minutes sooner. Darn it ! We feasted on chicken from the bbq that had been marinated in a delicious yogurt/lemon marinade (thanks Jackie) and had brussel sprouts. My but we do eat well on Close Knit. Later in the evening we were entertained by outstanding flashes of heat lightening all around us, it was truly awesome.
Harbortown is quite remote from anywhere. You need to take a cab ride to the closest bus stop to get most places. We have ordered up a car rental for this weekend to do some errands and we will take a ride to Bunnell to attend the MTOA lunch. And we plan to visit with P&P of PRIM. Bridget is very excited about seeing her boyfriends again. Harbortown has a restaurant, a pool and a good sized off leash dog park. You can't work on your own boat here which is a draw back and we are disappointed about that. We want to haul out sometime this fall for a bottom paint and a few other exterior paint jobs. So our short term plan is to stay here a month or so. We will be making a trip to Canada in the next week or so and Tonia (Al's youngest daughter) will be visiting us in early September. Harbortown is a close drive to Orlando for picking her up and tickets are already on their way for 2 days to visit Harry Potter World. Super COOL BEANS.
I'm looking forward to the car this weekend to explore. We are close to Cape Canaveral so it will be cool to see the launch pads up close. Of course Al is going to indulge me in a trip to Cocoa Village to the Knit store there. I'm keen to buy some Malibrigo for a new project that has caught my eye.
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07/26/2011, Harbor Town Marina Cape Canaveral
Close Knit pulled into her summer slip at 12:10. Jennifer will blog later with pictures.
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07/24/2011, Vero beach City Marina
Giving Vero its due
When we passed through Vero Beach in April we were not keen. Our main purpose to stop in Vero then had been to hook up with our friends Bill & Karen (Island Moon) who had just returned from the Bahamas. We pulled in here yesterday on our trek north to get some relief from the unrelenting heat. We plugged into AC and will stay until Monday Morning. After arrival yesterday we took the free bus into Publix. Had a nice pasta supper on board. T
his morning Al promised beach time since we have never explored the beach area here. The beach was the most pleasant surprise. Not crowded and worth the 25 minute walk. We erected our beach umbrella and we swam and enjoyed the rolling surf for a couple hours. The water temperature was about 15 degrees cooler than the Keys and felt refreshing. We opted for a late lunch at the ocean side Mulligans Bar & Grill. We shared a meal and had a beer.
When we got back I took Miss B for a walk to the off leash park right next door, another bonus here. She chased her Frisbee until, she couldn't and I brought her back for the coolness and some water. The rest of the day will be relaxing before we start travel tomorrow morning. We are only 2 days away from our final fall destination of Harbortown at Cape Canaveral.
Al's finger is much improved today. Its moving more freely and the colour is better. For those concerned I would have totally popped for the price to take him for a consultation if warranted.
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07/23/2011, Vero beach City Marina
Our cruising from Fort Lauderdale to Vero Beach has gone well. Our engine and new transmission seem to be in harmony. The boat is working best ever. Cruising along and sounding wonderful.
We have enjoyed several nice quiet anchorages since last week at FL. We landed in Vero Beach at noon today and are comfortably plugged in with the AC on.
Two nights ago Al was fishing off the aft deck and caught a salt water cat fish, can any one say UGLY. Well in trying to release it off the hook the SOB horned him mid forefinger. It bled like a SOB and Al was in obvious pain. We had no wifi so I couldn't google info on what we should do or the seriousness of such a puncture. I did offer to call a hospital for advice but Al said he'd be fine.
Its still hurting and it looks WEIRD so I'm not convinced he's fine. Its purplish and to me looks like venom was shot up into it that looks Indigo in colour. Its mildly swollen and very hard to the touch and numb. Al and I both googled it and I think its looking necrotic and may need to be amputated. What he read said polysporin was the way to go. I also read the immediate antidote was to rub the injured part on the underside of the cat fish. Da! We totally missed that window. I'm just hoping his finger tip doesn't fall off before we make it back to Ontario where we enjoy socialized health care. I think the look of that finger would get him to the front of the line up pretty fast. I'm glad he's not the knitter in the family.
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07/19/2011, Marathon to Fort Lauderdale
New Pics on Picassa.
Today was supposed to be a beach day but the weather was thunderstorms & rain so I decided to tackle the Honda Generator pull cord. After a bus ride to Ace Hardware I am happy to report after much swearing, it is fixed. Actually it was easy, but putting it all back together was painful. We had a wonderful pasta dinner with wine on the boat. Tomorrow we start to get going again.
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07/19/2011, Fort Lauderdale Municipal Marina
West Marine FACTS
No matter where your port of call or marina is, it will be guaranteed that West Marine will be the furthest commercial retail outlet from where you are. I truly believe in every municipality there is code that a West Marine has to be as far away from cruisers as possible. They have to be in cahoots with the public transit and Yellow Cabs. Yesterday Al and I took the public bus from Los Olas Marina to West Marine to get our new battery. The bus was $1.50 each. We took our back pack to bring the battery back. I picked up a new whale blue skort, some Velcro for the handling lines, I wanted marriage savers (head phones) but they weren't in the budget just now. When we checked out the, battery weighed about 80 pounds and was just shy of fitting in our pack. So we called a yellow cab to bring us back to the boat. As luck would have it we got stuck on a bascule bridge allowing two sail boats through, tic, tic, tic goes the cab's metered clock. The return trip cost us $18 including a tip. Thanks West Marine for sucking the life out of the cruising Kitty.
When I run the cruising world, I will make it law that every marina has at least a satellite West Marine or at least a courtesy shuttle to and fro.
We then went to the beach for a beautiful swim. We figured we would arrive at our summer destination on Sunday, so we have decided to stay another day here in beautiful Fort Lauderdale, so we arrive on a Monday & take advantage of more A/C & more beach.
Peace out.
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