We had a lovely little evening sail up the coast from Fort Pierce to Cocoa, Florida. The plan was to arrive in Cape Canaveral in the morning as I never, ever like entering a new inlet or harbor in the dark. Sailing at night, despite Ceol Mor’s penchant for throwing any foolishness at us in the dark is still my favorite. There is just something magical about the sea at night, with sparks of bio luminescence highlighting our wake and the moon rising. I will take an evening sail at sea whenever possible, Easy, peasy lemon squeezy as they say.
We came back inside at the Cape Canaveral barge canal with a plan to drop anchor and rest for a bit, then move on to a marina for a much needed bit of maintenance, laundry and showers with unlimited hot water. As I checked the charts on our approach I noticed the indication of dolphins on the the chart. YES! And as we entered the locks we had 3 bottlenose dolphins playing round Ceol Mor and going through the locks with us. SQUEEE! The charts said they would be there and there they were! Mark chuckled. “Mooring dolphins Cid, mooring dolphins.” I totally knew that, but in my sleep deprived state I had forgotten and my brain went automatically to the marine mammal type of dolphin because they are my favorite and every time I see them I become a giddy five year old. They really need to come up with a better name for mooring dolphins to prevent other marine mammal lovers disappointment should they be expecting Flipper and instead are greeted with a collection of pilings. Flipper is way more exciting.
We dropped anchor just off to the side of the locks in a somewhat sketchy anchorage. It was littered with boats that seemed to have not been visited by anyone in a very long time. There wasn’t a lot of swing room either, but we were fairly well protected and were able to set the Mantus and get some sleep.
The next day, we found a berth at a marina in Cocoa and had a few hours of chugging on the ICW to get to Cocoa Village Marina. They only had one slip available that would accommodate our 6 foot draft, so we made our way into the one and only slip that could accommodate us.
Cocoa Village has a friendly staff and the cleanest bathrooms I have ever seen in a marina. Clean matters. it matters a lot. They also have a laundry and are in a great location for accessing supplies, grocieries, etc. The negative that were to discover soon as foul weather approached was that our slip left us no protection. Zero. Mark spent an inordinate amount of time trying to design a system that would prevent us from getting beaten up in the slip. The water depth was not sufficient when the winds kicked up to prevent us from bouncing on the bottom. Fantastic. Truthfully some of the hardest wear and tear Ceol Mor has endured this season was in marinas due to poorly designed slips. Between tearing up our bottom in Cocoa Village and the damage sustained to our swim ladder in El Milagro in Isla Mujeres, we really began to appreciate how fantastic Watergate Yacht Center was back in Texas. You don’t know what you;ve got til its gone as the song goes.
We arrived in Cocoa Village just in time for a car show in Historic Cocoa Village. The Historic Village is a collection of quaint little shops, interesting restaurants and the single greatest hardware store of all time- Travis Hardware. We ambled about looking at stuff, even though we are not truly gear heads. It was an interesting walk though, with lots of interesting people watching to be had.
We ended up extending our one month stay to two months. For us to stay put in one location so long, there had to be a solid reason. And there was, which I shall share with you…next time.
