Vero Beach to Titusville, Florida (AICW)

A funny thing happened to us on our way to Vero Beach the other Friday.

Vero Beach

It would be a lie to say it was an uneventful trip. No worries, nothing dramatic, but we got caught in a really bad rain storm, and then as we were going along, in 14 feet of water, the sound of the engines suddenly just "sounded" different (a bit louder almost). We both looked at each other and were like... did something just change or happen?? We slowed down, noticed a slight vibration on the port side, but everything else was normal. Hummm, we were almost to the marina in Vero Beach where we had reservations so we continued on. It didn't take Papi long to check and change the prop. It's strange, but we think it might have already been repaired once, and that it just gave up... We're sure glad we have spare props!!

We stayed at the municipal marina in Vero Beach. An easy walk or bike ride to the Beach, Parks, and shops and it has a free transit bus to go further (groceries, Walmart, West Marine...) across the bridge. We're staying at the dock (at a slip) but they also have a mooring field here... we thought about moving to a mooring ball ($16.25/day) but you have to raft up (tie up) to another boat on the mooring. We were not really comfortable with that.

Our idea of anchoring out in the Melbourne area got nixed when the coast guard came on the VHF radio with a weather warning for small crafts... Gust of 60 mph wind, thunderstorms and a chance of hail, for the next 24 hrs... Yup, we changed our plans. I tried calling two marinas, they never answered the phone, the third had nothing available but recommended Telemar Bay Marina. (The reviews I had read were not great - so I hadn't called them yet)

Telemar Bay Marina has been one of our better stops. Not because of the amenities - they are clean, but not fancy, but because we have dolphins and manatees swimming just off our dock. It's amazing!!! We are safely tied up to our dock in the high winds, but have an ongoing show, WOW... The staff here has been great, it's an easy walk to a 7Eleven and the Publix is less than one mile away. (There is nothing wrong with this marina - I don't get why the reviews are not so much better)

The "Oars and Paddles" Park is right next door, we've spoken with a few of the Canadians who are here to train - they'd been paddling by us since we arrived. A couple of them were very surprised to see a boat from Rideau Ferry Ontario.

Papi's been busy trying to get a good picture of the dolphins - it's true when they say for every "one" good photo, you have hundreds of just the "water". It's been keeping him happily occupied, lol.

We left the marina in light winds and a calm river, it made for a nice travel day to our next destination - Titusville Florida. (Note: I was going to finish here and start a separate blog post at this point, but the wifi is not very good in Titusville - so I worked on the text and added the photos when we had a stronger signal. I know, it's a long post, but we've seen soooo much!)

We decided to stay in Titusville for one week - because the weekly rate was really interesting, and there are a lot of things to do & see in the area. Our timing could not have been better to be there. The day we arrived, there was supposed to be a "Space X" rocket launch early in the evening - how exciting is that? We had time to spare, so we went for a small bike ride (8 km's total) to check out a store we had seen in other towns. Bealls is an interesting store, we'll likely go back :-) On our return to the boat, there were cars/trucks lining the side of the streets, parked in fields, people walking to the middle (highest point) of the bridge... Some had picnic baskets, most had lawn chairs - this launch "Falcon Heavy" (I think) was a very big thing here!

When we got back to the boat, we picked up our chairs and walked to the park. There we waited with our cameras and binoculars ready... for a launch that got cancelled due to high winds... Drats! We went back to the boat and were told it was rescheduled for the next day. Nice!

Speaking with others at the marina, the best place to watch a launch is right from your boat. So we saw the launch from the deck of Sea Loons. How awesome is that? It's hard to tell, but the white spot in the photo is the rocket.

For fun, we decided to rent a car for the weekend and get a bit of exploring done. First on the list, day trip to Orlando! We got sidetracked when we saw a sign for "Fort Christmas", we just had to go and see what that was about.

We did not hit any of the "theme" parks, but we did drive around and checked out the "Icon Orlando 360" site. That's where we discovered the "Skeletons Museum of Osteology"! Yup, we spent a good three hours looking at bones, and it was extremely interesting (much to my surprise). It was worth it.

We also wanted to go to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. WOW, what a place. We were told to plan at least five hours there. In truth, we would have needed at least two full days. There is so much to see! It's an amazing place, the Apollo & Atlantis, the bus tour, IMAX movie, all the "real" displays. Just, WOW!

We went for a drive to Cocoa and Merrit Island - had to go see the Atlantic ocean. We haven't been in the Atlantic yet, we're still traveling in protected waters (AICW). We spent the rest of our week in Titusville (no car) doing fun stuff like: defrosting the fridge, waxing/treating our wood counter top and cutting boards, changing the engine oil and power steering oil, washing and waxing the boat and taking cool pictures of the manatees next to our boat!