Cocoa

Dec 5/07 we arrived in Cape Canaveral and proceeded to Cocoa. Our main purpose in arriving that day was to be there in time to see the space shuttle Atlantis launch scheduled for Dec 6. We planned a launch party with Jocks Lodge, Windsong and On Overdraught on Star Shadow, but it was not to be! Technical problems at NASA delayed the launch, and technical problems onboard Star Shadow precluded having a party on our boat. Undaunted, we moved the party over to Windsong (she's another Whitby 42) and celebrated not seeing the launch! Cruisers will use any excuse to get together, if you hadn't aleady noticed! Anyway, the launch was delayed over and over and finally cancelled all together until sometime in January. We did get to see a rocket launch on Dec 9, I think it was taking up a satellite or something. We managed to have another pot luck that day, this time on Star Shadow, as our problems had been cleaned up.

Clare was determined that we should get to a beach, so 8 of us took the local bus to Cocoa Beach (about 10 miles away) on Dec. 11. No sooner had we got off the bus when everyone started to cough, wheeze and get runny nose and eyes!! We were being exposed to "Red Tide" which is a nasty organism in the water that produces a noxious gas which irritates the airways and mucous membranes of people, and can be deadly to fish, dolphins and sea turtles. We walked to the beach, but by then, several of our group were really suffering with breathing problems, and everyone except Graham, Clare and I headed off to the nearest bar! Clare didn't hang around long, and only Graham played briefly in the surf (he wasn't allowed to get his head wet because of his recurring ear problem) until my eyes were streaming and stinging so bad I had to make him come in! He was hurting too, but the lure of the water was powerful! Anyway, showered or rinsed off, we joined the others at the bar for lunch before braving the outdoors again to catch the bus!

Since our beach day had been a bust, we decided to head to the big mall and shop our brains out! It was a good opportunity to do some Christmas shopping, and then Larry and I took took the kids to see "The Golden Compass" a pretty good movie. It was a good day all in all, despite the let down of the red tide.

The old part of Cocoa is a nice small area with lots of little shops (touristy of course) and an excellent restaurant which makes the most awesome homemade icecream! We did partake several times! Since our internet connection was terrible there, we had to go to the library for a decent signal. It was a good opportunity for Graham to get caught up on school work, which he was in desperate need of! There are so many other cool things to do other than school work....

We rented a car for a weekend with Jocks Lodge, and took the opportunity to go to Titusville for showers and laundry (no showers in Cocoa :-( sadly). We also wanted to go to the Kennedy Space Center which we did on Dec 16. Of course it was raining and VERY windy that morning and there was no way I was getting off the boat in weather like that! I'd be soaked to the skin just from the dingy ride to shore! Luckily, it eased off by about 10 am and we headed off to the space center. It is quite an interesting day - there is so much to see that you definitely need at least a day there. We got to see the space shuttle (from a distance), since it was still in the launch bay, as well as all the other parts of the center. They have a simulated launch of a shuttle, which we went on and had a ball! Glad I'm not an astronaut! There was wildlife to see too - several alligators and lots of turkey vultures were spotted along the way.

We ended up staying in Cocoa nearly 2 weeks as we had made reservations to stay in Vero Beach from Dec 20 - Dec 27, and Vero is only 50 miles from Cocoa. It was as good a place as any to hang around until then. The bus system is great going to all sorts of great shopping nearby. Good for groceries as well as all the other necessities (like West Marine and Home Depot!)

We bid adiou to Cocoa on Dec 18 and made a short trip down the ICW to Melbourne/Indiatlantic. There we beached the dingy and walked a short distance to the beach on the Atlantic. Red tide was still in evidence, but nowhere near as bad as it had been in Cocoa. Graham was able to have a great time in the water, trying to body surf without getting totally rolled by the big waves! He was still the only one to go in beyond the knees!

Dec 20 we departed Melbourne and headed for Vero Beach, 32 miles down the ICW. This part of the ICW is on the Indian River (where all that wonderful citrus fruit comes from) and although the river is quite wide, it is very shallow and the channel is rather narrow. Clare and Graham were in charge of driving the boat and navigating that day, and they had to pay attention at all times or risk going aground!