Travelin' to Titusville

Carlton & Becky with Capt. Larry and a conch sandwich

The pelicans line up for a free meal

Throw me somethin', mista!

On what we thought was our last day in Fort Pierce, we rode our bikes to a nearby restaurant to have lunch with Carlton & Becky. The special of the day was 1 pound of boiled crawfish for $9.99. Capt. Larry asked if that was peeled or whole, and the waitress said whole, she was a little insulted when we told here that in Louisiana the standard was 5 pounds for about the same price. We said that we would not know what to do with just 1 pound of crawfish! After lunch Jane took off and found a fisherman cleaning some fish and being hounded by a group of pelicans. They would come up and stab his leg with their bills until he threw them a scrap. That night Carlton & Becky came aboard Bavarian Cream and we grilled steaks. We ended up spending an extra day in Ft. Pierce due to weather. It started raining the night before we planned to leave and rained pretty much through the entire next morning. Although it cleared by noon, we decided that such a late start would not really serve us well, so we decided on an extra night. Besides Ft. Pierce is just about our favorite place on Florida's east coast.

The next morning with clear skies we cast off and headed for Melbourne. The plan was to stop at Jone's Fruit Stand and Dock to tie up for the night with Seamoore and Goofin' Off, with Rich & Lin from Troy, New York. We were the first boat out, and when we got to Jone's Dock, it looked deserted. We hailed a neighbor who informed us that the 85 year-old owner had passed away. We called Seamoore and told them the news and decided to head on to Melbourne. We arrived at Melbourne and anchored in the protection of a barrier island causeway. After a steak & shrimp dinner, we listened to some music, watched Todd Melancon's donated DVD, Pirate Radio, and had a pleasant night on the hook. The next morning the NOAA weather forecast sounded pretty ominous with major storms predicted to cross our path. We decided to head for Titusville and hunker down in a marina, rather than try and weather the storm at anchorage.

A manatee pair eating algae on the boat

Looking for a drink of water

Getting a drink as we cleaned the anchor

Water! Water!

We arrived at the Titusville City Marina and secured the boat for a good blow. The weather was still pretty decent, so we got the bikes down and rode to a nearby CVS pharmacy to pick up a few things. We got back to the boat and watched the manatees. The marina has a population of about 40 manatees, and they were milling about our boat, eating algae from the neighboring boat, and coming up for a freshwater drink when we cleaned the anchor chain. About an hour after we returned, the storm rolled through the marina. We were experiencing 50+ kt. winds and torrential rains. We weren't sure how the boat would do in such conditions, but she held her own. The sailboat berthed next to us was listing so far over in the wind that we began to worry if the mast would hit our boat.

Osprey on a mast

The sailboat three berths down from us didn't get the jib sail completely furled and the wind tore the sail to shreds. The problem was that the sail flapped in the stiff breeze virtually all night long and kept us awake longer than we needed. Since the weather forecast was lousy for the next day, we thought it would be a good time to rent a car and go see the NASA space center and Cape Canaveral. However, when we arose the next morning, the storms were still coming so we decided on boat chores and an early happy hour to pass the time. We plan to go to the space center tomorrow.