Cocoa Beach to Ft. Lauderdale

December 13, 2006: Well, we finally overcame the “dock-monster” and headed out of Manatee Cove Marina for points south. Dolphins followed us for miles, and we saw beautiful homes and a lot of wildlife along the way. We headed down the

Banana River about 5 miles to the Indian River, and retraced our trip back down to the St. Lucie Canal. We crossed our wake at that point, and continued south for another 10 miles or so to an anchorage recommended in “Skipper Bob’s” books. It was “as advertised” in his book, and we anchored for the night along with about 20 other boats, mostly “rag boats” – or sailboats – as their owners like to call them. It was a windy night, with winds gusting to 20-25 knots, but our trusty Delta Anchor held, and we had a fairly good night’s sleep.

Since I mentioned Skipper Bob, let me say that we learned this week that the “Skipper”, whose real name is Bob Reib, and is well known in cruising circles, passed away this past Monday. He has written about a dozen cruise guides that he updated regularly, and to those of us who leave our home waters to cruise, his books are almost mandatory. They are very well written, concise without a lot of fluff, and worth every penny they cost. I can tell you that two nights that we didn’t have to stay in a marina because of his anchorage location advice more than paid for the whole set of his books. More than that though, was the man himself. Although I had never met him back in 2001 when Pat and I began to seriously consider making this trip, I emailed him with a cruising question, not really expecting a response. Not only did I get a response, I got his wisdom, his advice, and an invitation to email or call him if I had more questions. I was amazed! Pat and I had the opportunity to met Bob in 2005 and again in 2006, at Great Loop Cruisers’ Rendezvous, where he was a featured speaker. There, I discovered that in a previous life he had been an Army Aviator as well. He was more than approachable, never turning anyone away. His sense of humor is legendary to those who have met him. Sadly, he passed away on Monday morning as he was putting up Christmas decorations at home. Those of us who have been privileged to meet him, and the thousands of us who have benefited from his writing, will miss him. He was a very good man.

Now, back to the trip. After our windy anchorage, we headed out the next morning, December 14th, for the worst day of cruising we have had to date. Believe it or not, we headed into the worst rainstorm in the history of this part of south Florida literally. Previous to this date, the record rainfall was 3.7 inches. Today, it rained 6.1 inches in about 6 hours, with more on the way. It was miserable to say the least. Pat and I could barely see 25 yards in front of the boat, and finding channel markers in that kind of weather is a challenge. Thanks to radar, a great chart plotter (a Northstar 6000i), and good eyes on the part of the crew, we made it safely to Sands Harbor Marina about 15 miles north of Ft. Lauderdale.

Getting our boat into the slip assigned us at this marina was a challenge, with very little maneuvering room. Thankfully, with no wind to speak of and very little tidal current, the Captain made a great landing.

On Friday, December 15th, we made our way to Marina Bay Marina, about five miles up the New River in Fort Lauderdale. This is a great marina with floating docks, a workout room, pool, bar, restaurant, and all kinds of neat stuff. The trip up the New River was a wonderful experience, with all kinds of interesting things to see on both sides of the VERY narrow river. Again, there were beautiful homes and large boats docked along the way. There is a lot of real estate for sale in this area, if anyone has the inclination to buy property here, and also has a few million dollars to spend.

On Saturday morning, December 16th, there was a free brunch at the marina clubhouse, and all transient boaters were invited to attend—and we did. This free brunch/breakfast is done monthly for all residents who live on the premises, and it was very nice. Surrounding the marina is a community or hundreds of rental condo-style apartments that are also very nice. The clubhouse is decorated beautifully for Christmas, with a huge live tree and lovely decorations throughout. A racquetball court; fitness center; movie room with theater chairs, large screen and popcorn machine; a coffee bar; showers and laundry room are also part of the club. There is also restaurant/bar/grill located on the premises that has great food, serving both lunch and dinner. Local bands provide entertainment Friday and Saturday afternoons/evenings.

We met our friends from Tennessee, Ted and Linda Jones, who are here in Ft. Lauderdale today (Saturday), getting their US Coast Guard Captain’s licenses renewed, which they have to do every five years. We went to dinner and then to the annual Fort Lauderdale Boat Parade. After the boat parade we went to Los Olas Blvd for dessert and walked around town for a while, then back to the boat. We enjoyed having Ted and Linda stay with us on our boat while they were here and look forward to them joining us for a while on another part of our trip.

Monday (December 18th), we will continue the trip south, headed for Key West.

More to follow, so stay tuned.

The Launch of Shuttle Discovery

Well, we think it’s time for an update to our update. There hasn’t been much to write about since we arrived at Manatee Cove Marina three weeks ago, other than we have spent a lot of time with our friends Eric and Ellen Provost, and have made some great new friends here at the Marina. It has been a great “fix” for us to spend some time on a military base after being away from that for the past ten years, and we are enjoying it.







Let’s start with the most thrilling event we have seen in a long time. Thanks to our old friends the Provosts, and our new friends the Bouthillers, we were able to watch the launch of the Shuttle Discovery last night (9 Dec) from a great vantage point at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The NASA folks keep the Shuttle bathed in spotlights prior to launch, and it is a sight to behold. The only thing we can tell you about the actual launch itself is that it is about four standard deviations more exciting to watch and hear the launch from close up than it is to watch it on TV. We were speechless. The sky went from very dark to a brilliant light as Discovery ascended into space. The noise from the launch was a surprise--very loud as you can imagine. Thanks so much to Eric and Ellen and Tom and Diane for making it possible for us to be spectators at one of the events that makes America stand out from the rest of the world. All we can say is WOW!!!



Last night was also the Christmas boat parade here at the marina. Many of the boat owners worked all week to get their boats ready for this parade. These folks take this Christmas boat parade seriously, and they put a lot of hours into decorating. There were several spectacular decorated boats. We were a little disappointed that we would not be able to see the parade as well as the launch, but our timing was such that we were able to see all the boats as we were crossing the Banana River headed to the launch, and it was an awesome sight with all the decorated power and sail boats cruising along. It was a beautiful night for a boat parade (and shuttle launch), and both were a great success. The shuttle launch was by far the highlight of the night.

Now, for what we have been doing for the month (almost).

We stayed at the Manatee Cove Marina for Thanksgiving and had a wonderful meal. Several of the men and women (active duty and retired military folks) of the marina provided smoked turkey and deep fried turkey for everyone. Everyone else who attended brought a covered dish. It was a beautiful day, and everyone had a great time sharing delicious food, desserts, and friendship. This event started several years ago as a means to have Thanksgiving dinner for Airmen of the base who couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving, and has become a tradition here at the marina that brings a lot of folks from the club to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. As always, we ate way too much, but we enjoyed every bite.

Pat flew to Alabama the end of November to spend a few days with her mother and drove our truck back to Florida. Her mother was keeping our truck for us until we could make arrangements to get to Alabama to drive it to Florida. We had not planned on doing this until January, but because we have stayed here much longer than anticipated, we decided it was best to get the truck to Florida now so that we could have our own transportation while here. Eric and Ellen will drive our truck from here to Key West the end of December and spend a few days with us there. We will spend our Christmas and New Years in the Keys and look forward to Richard and Marcy and Eric and Ellen spending time with us during the holidays. Eric and Ellen will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary on our boat on Dec 29-Jan 1.

We spent Sunday, December 3rd, with friends Diane and Tom Bouthiller, who invited us to go out on their boat for the afternoon. We cruised the Banana River and the canals of Cocoa Beach and saw beautiful homes along the way. We ended up at Dania and Gregg Billman’s house that is located on a beautiful canal. All of these folks we just mentioned are new friends we have made here, and they are wonderful people that we are very happy to have met.

We arrived here at Manatee Cove Marina on 15 November, intending to stay only a few days, (we will have been here a month by the time we untie from the “dock monster”) and have logged about 1,600 miles so far. We have enjoyed our stay at Manatee Cove Marina, but it is time to move on—all good things must come to an end. We have met many great folks and have made many new friends, and look forward to seeing them again. We will leave on or before 15 December, weather permitting, heading south toward Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and the Keys. We look forward to meeting our friends Ted and Linda Jones somewhere around Fort Lauderdale next weekend. Our ultimate destination is Key West, at Boca Chica Marina. We will be there from 23 December through 23 January and look forward to enjoying that area and its attractions. We plan to leave the boat in Key West when we head back to Knoxville the first part of January for eye, dental, and medical appointments. We’ll head back to the boat after that, and see where this adventure takes us.

We wish everyone a blessed Christmas and best wishes for 2007.

More later, so stay tuned.