Cocoa - Shopping and Polishing

Cocoa - Shopping and Polishing   …   Saturday 1st December

We spent the day doing "housework" and shopping. In the morning we took the dinghy in to shore and then walked over the Hubert Humphrey bridge across the Indian River to pick up a few things at West Marine and some groceries at Publix. It seems that pedestrians are viewed as a rare and unusual life form in Florida (verging on extinction?) and walking over the bridge on a 2 foot wide sidewalk with traffic zooming past at 50 miles an hour was a scary experience. But we made it over and back in one piece and even managed to dodge the showers. The weather was up and down all day with bright sunshine one minute and gusty squalls and rainbows the next. In the afternoon we set to polishing the stainless steel on deck and tightening down the guard rail stanchions, some of which were coming lose. 

Gloria and I chatted a lot about our last passage from St Augustine down to Ponce de Leon inlet (see "Heavenly Anchorage" - Wed 28th Nov). It seems that sailing is a bit like climbing, the routes that go well build your confidence and make everything seem easier, but it only takes one shaky route to set back your confidence and make things feel much harder. In thinking about our last passage we forget that the previous two days off the coast were really enjoyable, even though in retrospect the forecasts on those days weren't as good as the last day. I think what worries us is that we have this crossing to the Bahamas to make where we know that the gulf stream will make conditions more extreme and now we have much less confidence in the conditions that are predicted. It doesn't help that we have only seen one day in the last three weeks when the wind didn't have some northerly component, which everyone says you should really avoid. Anyway, perhaps our sailing friends can share their thoughts.

We have about 50 miles to go to Vero Beach where we have a dock reserved from December 4th for the rest of the month. I now have flights booked to head back to the UK for a week (9- 16th Dec) to see my family and our daughter Tasha will arrive from California on the 19th to join us for the Christmas holidays. So we will spend the time over the next weeks enjoying being with family and preparing to head over to Bahamas as soon as possible in the New Year.

Mike

Rainbow over Cocoa, FL - as seen from our anchorage in the morning

Rainbow behind the Hubert Humphrey bridge

The Hubert Humphrey bridge over the Indian River (ICW)

The view through our dodger as an afternoon squall passes through

Afternoon squall on the Indian River - we met some of the family from the Catamaran last night at the dinghy dock - the father and his two little girls had just returned from Disney world, they come from Colorado but now live on the boat.

Afternoon squall on the Indian River