Ok, I admit I have been lax with the blog lately...days just seem to roll by and then I remember I havent blogged in awhile! So here goes! Our time in St Augustine was great as we stayed for 2 weeks. Dan and Kath had us over a couple of times and we also met up with Dineen and Daniel there from Water Music living in nearby Ortega Landing. I wont mention the shenanigans that went on but lets just say Fire Ball Whiskey was involved! Anyway, we left for New Smyrna City Marina ahead of some cold weather coming our way...cold = 60's down here. The trip was great with a north wind and tidal push most of the way. The marima used to be $1.20/ ft which was cheap...now $1.70 as of Nov 1st! Boo. Fewer cruisers will stop here at those prices but they dont seem to care because the City runs it. The old private vs public argument. We ate dinner outside on a sidewalk cafe with Mr. Dylan along. The food was great and it was back to the boat to get ready for another long day of 70 miles to Coco Beach. We were trying to get there so we could watch the Falcon 9 rocket launch at 3:30 the next day. We left New Smyrna at 8:00 am and headed south again with a north wind, and tidal help which gave us an extra kt or so all day. Temps were in the 80's so it was warm as we were going with the wind and barely felt a breeze. We were going to anchor at Coco but it was supposed to be in the 40's overnight so we decided to go to the City Marina in Coco. Well let me tell you it was pretty sketcky gettimg in....motor along a sea wall, in 5ft of water, turn hard left and head for the postage stamp size slip on the tee head while the wind is blowing like stink! We made it without crashing after doing a complete 180 inside the breakwater! Im getting good at this docking thing after 35 years of boating! Once again a price increase....no longer knock off 25% if you are a Boat US Member which was a .60 increase per foot! Come on! Anyway, we got in at,3:00 pm and watched the launch at 3:30 from the upper deck of the Marina....it lasted all of 10 seconds because it was cloudy! Still very cool to watch the lift off from 5 miles away. The rumble is amazing! Again we went out for dinner after walking around Coco which is one of our favorite towns. Very funky old downtown section with lots of funky shops, bars and restaurants. We ate pizza on the street and then headed back to the boat to get ready for our run to Vero Beach where we're going to do cruisers Thanksgiving and hang for a couple of weeks before we move on to Stuart for a week. The excitement started when I lost the chart plotter screen and depth readings and oh by the way, I forgot to turn on our new sonar set up that I had installed in St Augustine as a back up...idiot! So we're in a shallow channel with no idea how deep it was! Fortunately, we got out without bumping the bottom and I turned on the new sonar after we got out in the main channel. Again we got a north wind and tidal push to Vero also known as Velcro because it is cheap, $17.00 per day, free bus, lots to do, albeit you may have to raft up to someone with 3 to a mooring, which we did with our friends from last year Sue and Al from Gelato a 44 ft Hunter sailboat. Great folks and it was good to see them again. Vero has a free bus service, close by restaurants you can walk or dinghy to and a fabulous dog park for Dylan! There is also a great farmers market in town. The Marina that runs the mooring field has a great cruising community and every year, the CLODS, Cruisers Living on Dirt, from the area provide Turkeys for Thanksgiving for all the current cruisers. The current cruisers bring a pot luck dish and we all meet up at the nearby Boat Club. I digress, Bruce and Claudette from Summer Wind showed up on Tuesday and rafted to us. They hurried down from St Marys to have Thanksgiving with us! It was great to see them again. So we brought a pumpkin pie and the meal was great except lets just say, ,the next two days I spent a lot of time in the bathroon...food poisoning! Ugh. Who knows what it was, there were over 40 seperate dishes bur lets just say my colon has been cleansed! Lol. Friday was spent near the head, even though we went out to dinner with Bruce,and Claudette and Larry and Margie, who drove up from their condo in Port St Lucie. We went to Bobby's, which is a great little restaurant downtown. We will see them again in Stuart and of course , in Marathon at Dockside Marina. Speaking of Dockside, the bar and restaurant should be open when we get there! It was destroyed by Irma last year. Dylan is very happy to have a bar on site again! Sunday we met up with Ron and Dianna Heagney who have a condo on the ocean bear here. Ron and I worked together at Pfizer Animal Health for 22 years before he retired. We met at Riverside Cafe to watch the Patriots(him) the Giants ( me). One of us was happy with the game outcome and one of us not so much! Stupid Giants! Lol. The ladies decided to go shopping while we watched the game.. We will see them again this Friday. Ron and I can pick up like we never were apart, I consider him one of my best friends in life...just a great guy. So Monday I made my wife and Kids very Proud by eating a 1 lb hamburger, stacked with pork, onion rings and all the fixins at Mr Manatees just to get a free tee shirt! Mission accomplished and my family is so proud of their fathers gastonomic skills! Thank you very much. It was pretty rare but I soldiered on and in about 20 minutes, the deed was done...oh ya, you got to eat a big plate of fries too or it doesnt count. 4 of the group we went with accomplished this amazing feat! Lol. I may never look at a hamburger the same though! I'm still full 2 days later! So we plan on staying here until next Tuesday, Donna is very happy, a free bus to all the shops in town! Ive gone to a couple of movies, go see the Green Book by the way, it is a great history lesson of the early 60's. This weekend is a Christmas Parade downtown which is usually very cool. Dozens of floats. Summer Wind has moved on to Pompano for a couple of weeks and we are still attached to Gelato. Rumor has it when we get to Stuart we may see our old friends Bill and Maureen who own a house down there now as they sold Sweet Freedom last year. John and Jennifer from Lady J are flying back to Florida from Guatemala to visit family amd friends and we hope to see them at Bill amd Maureens along with Kath and Dan from St Augustine who will be coming down in their RV I think. we are looking forward to seeing everyone!...phew, longest blog on record but a lot to catch up on!

Fair winds and Calm Seas!