May 2-3 The oldest oldest oldest city

See the first picture for our next stop in Florida.  Of course we had to visit a fort (2^nd pic).  But this fort was built to protect all riches on the Spanish galleons from pirates as they made way in the gulfstream current back to Spain.  It was Ponce de Leon that discovered that the gulfstream current could sweep a ship up the coast and put one on track for a quicker trip to Spain.  We visited the famous Ponce de Leon hotel (next pic), that was built by Henry Flagler (it now houses the Flagler coed college).  No costs were spared, including the stained glass ceiling by Tiffany (next pic).The next pic is taken from the upstairs ballroom of the adjacent Alcazar Hotel (now the Lightner museum) that overlooks what was once the largest indoor pool in the world.  Women’s swimming championships were held here in the 1920’s.   Finally, there is a picture of our waiter at the Columbia Restaurant, which is supposed to be the best Cuban restaurant in the states.  And, we believe it.   We had mussels in some kind of Cuban sauce and Cuban flatbread.  Inexpensive and very, very good.  We even bought their cookbook, so that, when you come to visit, we will cook it for you!!!

April 30-May 1 Mangroves or Salt Marsh

We made way for a remarkable place, the Marineland Marina.  Here you can learn about nature.  There are no shops, no restaurants nearby.  It is a good break from eating and shopping your way through the great loop.  The beach was beautiful, part of it was covered with coquina, the only native rock found in Florida (first pic).  Since we docked at the marina, there were great discounts for the kayak ecotour. The next pic shows Christine and me at a sandbar watching least terns, an endangered species.  The tour guide pointed out that the area around marineland is the nexus where mangroves give way to salt marshes.  During the tour, we could see how the mangroves thinned out and the grasses of the salt marsh started to take over.   After the ecotour, we watched the dolphins at marineland for about an hour (next 2 pics).  Then a long bike ride out to Fort Matanzas, a national monument (next pic).  The pic shows Christine climbing through a hole in the top of the Fort.   Check out this one room fort—when the Spanish controlled it, there were 7 soldiers living in this room.  When the English controlled it, they had a many as fifty soldiers sharing this room!!

April 29 A fine little Florida town

We bumped up to the next little town, New Smyrna Beach.  Here we met Tom Cannon, who was on a sailboat racing team for the Lipton Cup Regatta (first pic).  It was a great coincidence that we were there at the same time.  The next pic shows New Smyrna at the beach and the following pic show the Ponce De Leon inlet and lighthouse.  We took a long bike ride and found the beach covered with cars.  Instead we rode to the north part of the inlet and found a boardwalk (last pic) that looped for a couple miles around the beach area.  We dined at the New Smyrna Beach Yacht Club with Tom C. –nice folks at the yacht club—we almost traded BlueSkies for a sailboat!!

April 26-28 Outer Space and Fine Dining

We stopped off in Titusville for a few days.   It was time to rent a car a see a few sights. So, we visited the Kennedy Space center for a day .  Then, we were hosted again by my sister Phyllis and Tom who drove up to Titusville bringing a takeout dinner from a gourmet restaurant.  It was good to see them getting comfortable on the aft deck of the boat(2nd pic).  Then, we had a homemade gourmet dinner by my sister Janet and her husband Tom, who live on Merritt Island.  The third pic shows a manatee with her offspring who lived in the marina.  When I sprayed off the boat, the manatees came up and licked the fresh water right off the swim platform.   The last pic was taken from the famous Cocoa Beach Pier and shows how crowded Cocoa Beach is during a weekend. The first pic was taken during the homemade gourmet dinner at sister’s Janet.  Each of the five courses during the gourmet dinner was paired with a special wine.  What a great excuse to drink fine wines!!

April 24 -25 Central Florida coast

We got underway heading for central Florida.  By mistake, we left the camera behind so there are no pics for a couple of days.  We got to Ft Pierce after a full day on the water—so, a quick beer at the tiki bar and we were done for the day.  The next morning was great walk over the causeway, and then, we were underway for St Sebastian Inlet.  We docked on the Indian River at St. Sebastion, just 4 miles away from my sister Phyllis and Tom’s house.   They picked us up for a homemade dinner of crab cakes.  The next morning, we all had a great breakfast in St Sebastian.  They saw us off from the docks as we started up the coast again toward Titusville.

April 18-23 Life at the Resort

It was a long 12 hour day from Hollywood to Riviera Beach.  We passed slowly through Ft Lauderdale with the fancy houses and a multimillion dollar yacht beside each multimillion dollar house (first pic).  We even passed Lighthouse Point, where BlueSkies was commissioned (next pic).  Finally, we arrived at the Resort, my sister Marty and her husband Bill’s newly acquired residence.  It was wonderful.  We (Marty, Chris and I) hot tubbed, we went swimming, we walked on the beach, we ate at fancy restaurants.  We did all this while Bill worked all day and half the night to pay for it all!   But we really did appreciate the reprieve from the intensity of either being underway or doing boat chores.  And the Resort was just that, very comfy.  The next pic shows Marty and Chris at the Jettys restaurant.   Marty asked a friend, Aunt Liz, who by that name we assumed she was a very elderly and feeble senior citizen.  The next pic shows Aunt Liz outside of Jettys restaurant standing beside her Porsche—guess our assumption was wrong.  The last pic is one of the Resort.

April 17th Heading North –Past Miami to Hollywood

After 4 days of heavy weather, we were finally off to a new harbor.  We passed Miami (first pic).  It was slow going, due to manatee zones, development zones, and bridges.  Christine captured a pic of a statue of a Conch Blower (next pic).   We arrived north of Miami in Hollywood, only to find out that the marina was mostly coral rock.   We arrived at low tide and, with incredible luck, did not ground the boat on these rocks.  The dockmaster was truly surprised and we were stunned that the marina was not marked to show the danger.  We had a great walk on the beach boardwalk,  margarita’s at mamacita’s, and all was well that day.