Day 7 - Cocoa

Kite departs Titusville

After a leisurely breakfast followed by morning chores, Kite dropped her mooring bridle at 10:00 yesterday and motored southward into the southeasterly breeze. At first, the breeze was twelve knots and she was able to keep her speed above five knots. As the wind slowly freshened to 15 and then 20 knots, Kite's speed responded accordingly, dropping to 4.7 and then 4.5 knots. In this part of the Indian River the ICW channel is narrow, but is bordered by wide areas that are at least 6 feet deep. Peter was getting so frustrated as the apparent wind stayed in the 20º to 25º range, and Kite needs at least 30º to get any driving power from her sail. As the wind continued to strengthen, Peter steered way over to the port side of the deep water then put out Kite's jib and steered at 30º off the wind until Kite was at the starboard edge of the deep water. This improved her speed to more than 5 knots and reduced Peter's frustration significantly.

Cocoa village was less than 20 miles away, and we arrived in the area of Cocoa Village Marina, our destination, at 13:30. The marina was so busy when we arrived that we had to go into a holding pattern outside their entrance channel. Kite was third in line. Thirty minutes later, we were finally tied up in our slip at the marina. It took us a while to adjust our dock lines and connect our power, because the marina slips were very narrow and long, and the docks were not floating docks.

After getting settled, the captains and crew of Kite and Ringle walked a few blocks to Ryan's Pizza, which had a nice bar on the deck upstairs. We all enjoyed drinks before walking through the pedestrian walk, past the ice cream shop, the playhouse (which had just finished a performance of Aida and the people were coming out of the theater), and several cafe´s. The theatergoers were talking excitedly about how good the performance was; it was Elton John's musical version of the famous opera. We walked back to the marina, past an old-fashioned hardware store (closed for the day) and Peter made a mental note to go back there the next day.

Lyn invited Vince and Eveline to Kite for dinner, her special chili (recipe from Alison and Jason), with wine and blue corn chips. The evening was very enjoyable as we devoured the chili and told funny stories gathered around Kite's mahogany cockpit table. As the sun set and it grew dark, we retired to our separate boats for the night.

Peter and Lyn both awoke this morning with the sunrise, showered and ate a simple breakfast with coffee. Peter walked over to the hardware store to buy some stainless steel machine screws, and was back in 20 minutes with a smile on his face. As soon as he walked into the store, someone asked if he could help and Peter described what he needed. He was led to a special cabinet that had the stainless steel hardware, and the clerk selected 4 screws, washers and lock nuts that were exactly what Peter wanted, and then he was directed to the checkout. The store's staff was so well trained, and it had EVERYTHING you could want from a hardware store. He paid $1.33 for everything and walked back to Kite smiling. In a few minutes he and Lyn had replaced the old screws with the new, better screws, washers and lock nuts and that project was finished.

We took advantage of being at a dock to fill the empty aft water tank and top up the forward tank, and Lyn, meanwhile, defrosted Kite's freezer. Vince and Eveline stopped by and asked it we wanted to walk with them to Publix, a supermarket, to get some groceries. We still had plenty and declined the offer. That decision might have been influenced also by the fact that Publix was 2 miles away, and the sky looked threatening.

After a nap in the afternoon, Lyn and Peter walked to a nearby ice cream shop and enjoyed a cool refreshment on the air-conditioned premises. It was hot this afternoon, about 85º, in spite of the wind that howled through the rigging all day long. As we were walking back to the marina, Lyn snapped a photo of the cute downtown Cocoa area.

Downtown Cocoa village

This evening the four of us went out to dinner at Norman's Raw Bar. It was kind of a biker joint, but they had cold beer and the fish and chips were excellent. They fried potato slices for the chips and the fish tonight was grouper instead of the usual cod fish. Excellent meal, but too much food. On the way back to the marina, Vince and Eveline got ice cream from the same place Lyn and I visited this afternoon.

We will be departing tomorrow at 08:00 in the morning en route Vero Beach, 55 miles farther south. Tomorrow looks like the only day this week that the wind will not be howling at 20 knots from the south. Kite plans to stay there until Sunday, 9 April, when we will move to the Marriott Resort and Marina on Hutchinson Island for a week with our grandchildren and their families.