Day 75 to Merritt Island (Cape Canaveral area)

The Admiral got an early start by going to the Farmers Market in the Eau Gallie area of Melbourne only 5 blocks from the dock. Not a lot of local produce at this time of the year, but she did get some great grapes. After that we had a 45 minute visit from some retired military friends of Terry's parents (and family).  They were stationed together in Indiana back in the 60's. 

The second picture shows Perry and Roberta as they were leaving.  Most of the small marina is in the background. The area around the marina reminded me of some of the small channels off of the main harbor at Annapolis, MD. Houses sitting 25 feet above the water with long sloping lawns down to the water.

The last picture from melbourne shows a scarecrow in a garden that the Admiral passed on her walk to the market. A real authentic looking scarecrow??? Now I wonder. Where are there grape vines in that yard?

Our boat trip to Merritt Island was 25 miles and took just under 3.5 hours. The final photo is of two manatees in the channel to the marina (two dark forms near the center of photo). For a mammal that moves as slow as a manatee you would think that they would be easy to photograph, but I guess not.

     Our marina for the next two nights has a pool, small store and a nice restaurant where we went for dinner. The marina has about 250 boats mostly about our size (+/- 5 feet) so you would think that they would have no trouble finding a slip for us. I put Lucky Us into the slip stern first with no problem. After we had all of the lines set, we found that there was only 30 amp power and not the 50 amp service that we need. Terry phoned the office, and they told us to move about 6 slips down. So, we untied everything, and once again I back into the new slip. I got Lucky Us about halfway in and all of a sudden she stopped. We were tightly wedged between 2 pilings since the slip was too narrow.  After yet another phone call, I put her stern first into the third slip, and this time we had enough room and the correct power...  Everything had gone pretty smoothly on all three dockings, but my nerves were more than a little shot by this time. Of course, with each "move" we acquired a bigger audiance as more people became curious as they saw us moving around... After checking in at the marina office, we both jumped into the pool to cool off and relax! That really felt good!

  Our marina is just off a dredged channel that was (is?) used to transport  stages of rockets to the Kennedy Space Center. Kind of like coming full circle. In June of last year when we were returning to our home port on Clear Lake, we passed the space shuttle on a barge headed for the Johnson Space Center just across Clear Lake from our home... Well, no barges this time, but we are signed up for a "shuffle" to take us to Kennedy Space Center in the morning.