A day to relax ashore and wait for better weather
21 March 2009
• New Smyrna Beach, Florida
by Mike
We sprang from bed quite early today.....well, I sprang, or more hopped really. Barb sort of hauled herself to the edge of the bed rather like the Discovery channel film clips of a walrus dragging itself to the water's edge and flopping over into the water. She wasn't quite woken up yet you see and while I got to walk Peri, her job was to get the coffee ready while we were out. Why were we subjecting ourselves to this torture if we weren't planning on going up the ditch today? Well, we had to get to an ATM to get some funds to pay for the dock space, plus we wanted to get to the Farmer's Market before everything was bought up or before the crowds arrived.
The market was small by the standards of some that we had been in but there was a wide variety of fruit and veggies, plus a couple of bakeries including one European one, a seafood kiosk, couple selling fresh juices, another lady selling herbs and soaps, plus a fair number of good crafts. We enjoyed ourselves with cinnamon buns and some very reasonable veggie purchases. We also got some 13 count shrimp for $6/lb and some Maine scallops for $12/lb. These latter two will provide for some great munchies perhaps when we get to Fernandina Beach.
Barb and I took a serious walk after the farm market to get to an internet coffee shop on the beach side of the city. It also gave us access to a store where Barb could acquire the fixin's for our contribution for the dock pot-luck party tonight - a sort of homemade granola bar. The internet cafe that we found was excellent and they had some great signs posted including one that read:
" Unaccompanied children will be fed an expresso, and given a puppy and a drum
You have been warned!"
Gotta remember that one!
While we were walking we found a couple of really great ideas that I might be able to copy for some crafts including one fellow that carved fish out of driftwood. I have already done birds that way but fish seems more in keeping with the nautical flavour of the times that we find ourselves in.
Our walk covered about 3-4 miles so we got some much needed exercise. New Symrna Beach is a really interesting place and well worth a visit. For boaters, the marina is excellent and at $1.25/ft relatively inexpensive by Florida standards except for the fact that it doesn't have wifi. They are trying to get it put in but since it is a municipal marina everything has to be done through City Hall and of course that all takes time.
Jeeze! Today has been a great day until just a second ago when it started to rain again. Again! After a mad dash to close windows of course it stopped. Oh well. Welcome to Florida and a little rain won't kill ya. I just hope it doesn't hamper the party. It's the wind that I am really fretting about. Even on the inside it will hamper the trip and slow our progress. However, there have been a couple of moments lately when I find that I haven't been having as good a time as I feel that we should be. Barb and I have discussed this and we have come to the conclusion that we have been rushing things too much. We were rushing to get to Tampa and now we are rushing north again. No more! From now on we are going to definitely slow down and smell the roses or at least the salt water and tide flats. The best time that we have has been when we are relaxing and hanging out. We need to do that more.
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