It’s Wednesday morning and today we head south to the SSCA Gam in Melbourne for three days and then on to home next Tuesday.  I can’t  believe that we have been away for nearly three months and our trip isn’t even half over.  That’s good.   It seems like only yesterday that our total time aboard for a vacation was only two weeks.  I like this better.  Our trip home for Chistmas will be short and it’s really jam packed.  With less than an month to see everyone and finish up on shopping, we will be plenty busy.  After we come back to Pandora we will have to high-tail it to the Bahamas in order to be there when the boys arrive in Georgetown in early February.

I have been listening to Chris Parker, the weather router, each morning and am beginning to appreciate just how tough it can be to get a decent weather window to make it across the Gulf Stream and all the way to Georgetown.  If we were trying to make the run right now it would not be good as the winds are very strong and from an unpleasant direction.  Well, we will just have to be on our toes as we get closer to our return date in early January.  Weather, and keeping track of it, is a full time focus for cruisers and doubly so in the Bahamas as there are just not that many protected harbors.  This means that when the wind direction changes, you have to move to a new location.   It’s for this reason that most everyone listens to the weather each morning just to be sure that they won’t find themselves on the wrong side of a key (island) when the wind shifts.

As another key part of our preparation for our trip to the Bahamas, we visited friends Jeff and Susan aboard Meltemi, last night and learned to play a version of dominos called Mexican Train, not a particularly PC name, if you ask me.  It was great fun and we are told that this, and other games are very popular with cruisers.   While Brenda and I were feeling like we were ready for bed by the time we dragged ourselves over to their boat at 7:00, we perked right up and had no trouble staying awake for several hours more as we played with them.  However, everyone was pretty pooped as we approached  9:00, “cruiser’s midnight” as it is known among the cruising set.   Me?  I was plenty ready for a nap.  That’s for sure.

Earlier yesterday, prior to nap time or just after our previous nap, depending on how you look at it, we went ashore again in Cocoa and enjoyed a walk around town.  As we had not ventured into the residential areas yet, we decided to see how, or at least where, the locals live.  We didn’t cover a lot of distance  but saw some really nice homes in a section just south of the business district.  The homes were modest and nicely maintained.  This one was our favorite.  We just loved the third floor glassed in room.  I did wonder how this would do in a hurricane.  Also, what happens in the summer when it’s blazing hot outside?  I guess it’s double blazing hot in there.  Very pretty though.   As Brenda and I enjoy saying, “I would live there”.Setting aside the pink shutters, this place would fit in well in our new home town, Essex CT.  What a great color and I love this fence.  It’s funny how these colors look so great in Florida and yet in New England we’d be saying “wow, that’s a blue house”.   I guess it’s always about location in real-estate.
House color isn’t the only thing that’s much different than at home.    On the arbor along the white fence, is this great vine.  I don’t know what it is called but some folks in Essex grow it in the summer.  Here, it’s a perennial   Nice that they were able to color coordinate the flowers with their house color.   There are loads of palm varieties.  I particularly like the pattern of these leaves.  Hard to believe that this sort of pattern is natural. Perhaps there is no more quintessential tropical flower than the bougainvillea. That and the ever popular hibiscus.   Another good one.   And here, they grow year round.  I wonder what the locals use as house plants?   Plants that will die outside because of the heat?  This ornamental orange, with fruit just a few inches across, was very pretty. We have always enjoyed bamboo and had two grand stands in our yard in New Jersey.  In spite of fears of them getting out of control, we had no trouble keeping them in check for nearly 20 years.  However, our variety was nowhere as large as this stand where the shoots were 4″ in diameter and the stalks some 60′ tall.   I’d hate to have to deal with older shoots of this stuff.  I used to chip up the old growth but it would take a really robust chipper to handle this. It’s also fun to see the little lizards scampering around everywhere.  This little guy seemed fine with having his photo taken even though I was only about a foot away.   Of course, he changed his color to blend in with the cement.  “I’ll sit really still and then you won’t see me!”.  Sorry bud, I see you…While not as elaborate as Charleston, St Augustine or some of the other places that we have visited, I recommend that you put Cocoa on your list. It’s a great place to spend a few days and we enjoyed our visit very much.

I have been thinking about how to begin this post as it’s really about my visit to a hardware store.  So, what guy isn’t interested in such a visit?  However, there are hardware stores and there are HARDWARE STORES.  The S.F Travis hardware store in Cocoa Florida isn’t just any hardware store.  It might very well be the  best if not biggest hardware store in the known universe.  And, with NASA so nearby, that’s probably a good thing.  “Harry, hold this, I need to run over to to Travis Hardware to get a nut for the Mars rover.  I’ll be right back.”  Yeah, right…

The store, founded in 1885, has been the go-to place for locals who, as you might imagine if you see their inventory, include folks from NASA and the rest of the “big boys” that work on rocket stuff.  Interestingly, the owner, fourth generation, is a guy named Osborne.  Osborn is a good name. I’m an Osborn in case you didn’t  know.  However, it’s spelled Osborn, without an “e”.

When I was in high school I worked in a hardware store so this sort of business is familiar to me and I never miss an opportunity to visit a hardware store when I can.  However, there was nothing in my experience that prepared me for this place with it’s four floors and multiple buildings.   When you enter the store you see what looks like a typical old-time hardware store with a bunch of guys sitting behind counters waiting on customers.   However, that’s about all that they have in common with a “typical” hardware store.  As I looked around near the front desk, I immediately saw a set of wrenches that you’d never see at a Home Depot.  How about a crescent wrench that’s over four feet long?  They have a whole set.  I asked the owner, Osborne, “so, how many four foot crescent wrenches do you sell in a year?”   His answer…” I sell one to every person who walks through the door that needs one”.    Ok, got it…  hesitation as I processed this.   Another question: “so, what sort of person buys one of these?”.    “guys with really big nuts”.   Check.    No more questions for now.Here we are in Florida and Travis has a large inventory of wood burning stoves.   Huh?  Well, the dust on them suggested that they have been in inventory for some time.   I actually asked the one “lady” at the desk.  “so, I’ll bet that there are plenty of items here that have been here for say, 20 years.”.  She rolled her eyes suggesting that I was way low.  So, I said “50 years?”  Another shrug.  I said, this time with less certainty, “100 years?”.  Her answer… “that’s probably closer and we don’t charge extra for the historic dust”.  There is just so much stuff in that store. Need an empty 50 gal drum, with lid, to mix up some sort of toxic substance?  Rocket fuel perhaps?  Got em… Me, I am more used to the orange “Homer Buckets” that they sell at Home Depot.  No dust on these puppies.  I guess that they are big sellers. All hardware stores have plenty of nuts and bolts.  Not like Travis.  They have literally hundreds, no make that thousands, of bins of every size and description.    And, they have them zinc coated, galvanized, un-coated.   EVERY SIZE.   Need a 3′ long galvanized turnbuckle?  “yeah,we got that.  How about 25?”  And, there is row after row to choose from.  Little stuff, big stuff and lots of it.   Rope?  Have they got rope?  How about a 500′ spool of 3″ nylon rope?  You could tow a barge with this stuff.   And, their customers probably do. Me, I needed a tube of Lubriplate grease to pump into my prop.  They had two kinds of Lubriplate but not the exact type that I needed.   Can you believe it?   They have stuff to build space shuttles but not grease my prop?  I mentioned this to the owner.  “I can’t believe that I need the one item in the world that you don’t have!”.  He sternly, but in a nice way, reminded me that he had two types of Lubriplate and that my problem was that I had a boat and they weren’t a marine store.  I guess that they serve vehicles that run on roads and go into space but not on the water.

So, speaking of water.  I had a productive day yesterday.  I changed the engine oil and filter as well as the two fuel filters.  I also went for swim to change the three zincs on the prop and shaft, something that I had been meaning to for some time but the visibility in the water has not been good enough. Here, the visibility is about 3-4 feet which is pretty good.  And, while the water is in the high 60s, I still needed to suit up as an hour in 69 degree water can get pretty cold.

So, do I look like a mini Jacques Cousteau?  Not bad for a semi-old guy.   Believe it or not, I was able to remove 13 itty-bitty screws and replace all of the parts and I didn’t even drop a single one.   Using a grease gun under water proved to be more challenging than I had anticipated.    Alas, mission accomplished.

After my “swim” we headed into downtown Cocoa and enjoyed a late lunch.  Me, I also had an ice cream cone because I was confident that I had earned it after my aquatic exploits.   Folks question me as to why I don’t hire someone to handle the under water work.  My answer… “I get to have desert!”.   After burning all of those calories I have to put them back and have found that ice cream is the best mechanism that I have been able to come up with.

Cocoa also has a really nice waterfront park, complete with a fountain.   The fountain is one of those where there isn’t a pond under the fountain at all.  The water squirts up through holes in a flat tile base and runs off into a grate at the edge of the fountain.  I was amused by a sign posted near the fountain stating that there was “no diving”.   What’s that all about?   There isn’t a pool under the fountain at all.  It’s just a slab with water squirting out of holes.  Well, they warned you.  NO DIVING into the cement slab.  I guess that the town lawyers made a case that those that needed to be warned were the same folks that watch prime time TV, perhaps not the brightest stars in the galaxy.The downtown streets are very quaint with shops of all sorts to choose from. Cocoa is a really nice city and well worth the visit.   The sign as you enter the waterfront park reminds you to enjoy the holidays.   Bummer about the miss-matched type. Perhaps they should talk to Osborne at Travis Hardware.  I’ll bet that they have a proper “H” in stock.  No, make that 100 in stock. We plan to enjoy yet another day in Cocoa before we head south to Melbourne to the SSCA gam on Wednesday.   Oh yeah, the sun is out and it’s another beautiful day.

It’s Monday morning and the sun isn’t yet up here in Cocoa.  Having said that, I expect that today, like the last few days, will begin with an absolutely wonderful sunrise.  I have to take sunrise photos as it is the only way that Brenda can enjoy them.   She has often said that her natural state is asleep.  Unfortunately, that “natural state” often alludes her until around dawn.   So, photos of the last two sunrises when we were in St Augustine are for Brenda.  If one fab sunrise is good, a second is better. Yesterday we came through Mosquito Bay and area that was just a ditch run through miles and miles of a shallow bay that is rarely more than five feet deep.  Even though there was water all around us the constant threat of running aground kept us on our toes.  After a nearly 50km run for the day we were tired and had certainly had enough.   The wind had also piped up so that we were motoring into it after some motor sailing earlier in the day.  Having to stay in the channel to avoid running aground was made even more fun given the large amount of weekend boat traffic.   Adding an additional bit of tension was the fact that my max prop has been vibrating a bit, something that shouldn’t be happening as I had it rebuilt a few years ago.  I expect that it needs more grease in the hub which I will pump in today.  However, there may be more to it, perhaps the shaft log nuts are loose.  Who knows. Vibration in the running gear is not a good thing as it, if not addressed, can shake other things loose.  Fortunately when this happens, I can put the shift into reverse and then back in forward which smooths things out.  Having said that, it can’t be good for the transmission.

My friend Keith, who has run his boat north and south many times, says that you are really in Florida after you pass St Augustine.  I believe him as while the water temperature, which was stuck in the low 60s for much of our trip south, rose by nearly ten degrees shortly after leaving St Augustine.  While I don’t know if it was just a different weather pattern over the last few days, we are now enjoying our first warm weather (that’s no heat required in the evenings and mornings and shorts during the day) in a long time.   Over the last few months, we have chased the cooler weather and water temperatures south as we progressed along the way.   Warmer is better as I will have to go for a swim today to deal with the prop as well as the shaft and prop zincs that need to be changed.   I am also glad that the water is somewhat clearer,  I expect that the visibility is at least a few feet here, something that we haven’t seen since we entered the ICW.  Tough to handle zincs when you can’t see anything. It’s a good thing that I have the hookah dive compressor as it will take me plenty of time to get all of this done.

Setting aside the drudgery of yesterday’s run, the last few days have been great fun.  In particular, we have watched the scenery change from miles of marsh to a mix of wetlands and residential development.   While it may have happened sooner than I realized, we have now entered an area of mangrove instead of the grasslands that were dominant further north.This was a nice looking lighthouse that we passed on our way past the Ponce De Leon inlet, just south of Daytona beach.  There are plenty of bridges in Florida and the further south we get the more there are.  Within about one mile in South Smyrna we passed five bridges.  To give this some context, in all of Georgia we only went under five.

As we looked behind us, three.  In front, two more.  Love the mosaic work that was on every piling of this bridge. Perhaps it was a plastic stick-on, but I couldn’t get that close to see for sure.  My vote is for something more durable.   This sort of ornamentation wouldn’t hold up well in the north. The attention to detail certainly demonstrates how important the water economy is here in Florida.  “If you like this bridge, you’ll love our city.  Stop and spend money!”  I stopped but didn’t get off of Pandora to spend a dime.  Sorry.We are also in manatee country but have not yet seen one yet.  Given the fact that these gentle creatures don’t swim very fast, it’s amazing that there are any left given the massive amount of boat traffic where they live.   I am told that nearly all of them have nasty scars on their backs from the props of passing boats.   Very sad.

On a lighter note, we had our first dose of Christmas boat parade when we were anchored in New Smyrna.   As we headed toward our destination we passed this boat with a full, and well amplified, band on board.  That and the pirate motif are certainly writing home about, and that’s what I will do.  Or, at least I’ll include photos.   Pretty funny. I wonder if they had life jackets for all on board?  I am trying to imagine how a Coast Guard boarding would go with this group.  “Matey, have yee flotation devices for your crew and wenches?”   So, any votes as to who is the captain?  My vote is for the grumpy guy on the left.  Behind him, head wench?  Well, at least happiest wench. This vessel had everything a pirate could want, even a trusty teddy bear.

We anchored south of New Smyrna and had dinner in the cockpit with some friends, Ginny and Ted off of Firecracker, a sistership to Pandora.  They too are on their first run to the Bahamas.

As the evening progressed, we were passed by boat after boat heading to the start of the parade.  This one, unlit was just a hint as to the extent of the decorations. Later, after dark, all the boats passed us again, ablaze with lights.  And, all this in the company of the Coast Guard, complete with flashing blue lights and a good attempt to show that they too knew how to “deck the hulls”.  I guess this is the one time of year when the rules of the road for vessel lighting are suspended.   It was too dark to get a good photos as the boats paraded by but this will give you a feel for what it looked like.  Well, this is what Santa and Rudolf would have looked like if you had enough to drink, which we did. What was this?  Don’t know, but it was blue. If I recall, the little brown guy on top was Snoopy.
Yes, this was a sport fisherman, complete with outriggers. It was a great show for sure.  I am beginning to get used to this palm tree Christmas thing.   Yes, it’s looking pretty good.  And no Dorothy, we aren’t in Kansas any more.  That’s for sure.

If you ever get to St Augustine you owe it to yourself to take a tour of the of Hotel Ponce De Leon, named after the Spanish explorer who put St Augustine on the map, making it the oldest city in America.   The National Park Service has a nice write-up on the hotel that’s worth reading.

The hotel was built in 1887 and completed in just two years, is a really remarkable building and set the stage for the high end tourist industry in Florida with luxury hotel furniture. Flagler, then one of the wealthiest men in the world, was the guy behind the project and “spared no expense” when that really meant something.  This place is totally over the top.

The hotel was massively successful when it opened and lead to Flagler building other properties in Florida, including another across the street.  Ultimately the hotel fell on hard times and was turned into the Flagler college in the 70s.  They receive funding as a national monument and clearly from other sources as tuition isn’t very high for a private college and the facility maintenance alone must be a massive expense.  While the hotel is a key part of the college, they make portions of it available for tours.

Brenda and I enjoyed a visit yesterday and while it’s safe to say that “you had to be there” when it comes to appreciating the grandeur of it all, perhaps some of these detail shots will give you an idea of what it is all about.

This shot, which I used before in a prior post, is a small portion of the front of the building.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take a shot of the main entrance.   What an amazing structure.  It’s hard to believe that something this grand could have been built in only two years. The exterior details are just exquisite like this piece above a window. These “spouts” are actually for decoration only and serve no practical function.  They are just great.  You know what they say…”it’s better to look good than to feel good”  In this case, it’s better to look good than to be functional.  I’d have to agree.Lovely tile work around the main entrance. Intricate detail everywhere.  I wouldn’t expect that this would have survived the northern winters, or the pollution of a city like New York.

Once you enter the lobby the detail is even more remarkable.   Louis Comfort Tiffany handled all of the interior decorations and windows.   “Nice job Louis.  I just love your handiwork…”  There is a big dome over the grand entrance lobby and you can’t believe that all of this detail is in a single room. Nearly all of the wood is oak and is wonderfully carved.  It seems that Flagler employed shifts around the clock to make his two year timeline.   Bigger than life size, there are intricate motifs everywhere, and all with their own meaning. It’s hard to believe that this sort of craftsmanship ever existed, much less all in one place.   And, it’s still in great shape thanks to a big restoration project a few years ago.
The higher up you look, and it’s a long way up, the detail just continues.
We were shown other rooms, including the main dining room, still used for that purpose by the students of the college.  This building has more Tiffany glass in it than in any other building, anywhere.  I believe it. The windows in the dining room are just fabulous.  And, there are just so many in every pattern imaginable.  I expect, in the presence of such a grand room that food fights are not common among the students.  What do you think?  “now be good, ladies and gentleman, and keep your elbows off of the table.  And, I mean now…” The ladies lounge was just exquisite with so many fine details.  It looked, to me, like a (really big) piece of fine china instead of a room. What a fireplace and the clock, like all of the rest of the, then rare, electrical system, was crafted by Thomas Edison himself.    “Hey Tom, I am going to build this really nice hotel in St. Augustine and was wondering if you’d be available to put a few of those new fangled electric light thingies  into it?  The timetable?  Now is a good time.”  The chandeliers, nine in this room alone,  were also from Tiffany and in perfect shape.   Someone spent big dollars restoring this room, for sure.
Sure, the lighting in my shots aren’t museum quality but this place surely is.  You should visit.  This town, St Augustine, may be the best stop yet for the crew of Pandora.  Saturday we leave to continue south.

Oh yea, did I say that the sun is out today and it’s going to be in the mid 70s.  Not perfect but…  Me, I’ll take it.

It’s hard to believe that we are nearly at the end of November and yet we had lunch at a sidewalk cafe just yesterday.  Yesterday was a really nice day.

In the interest of fair balance, I should note that today is not sunny at all and it’s windy and much cooler, if you think of 61 degrees as cool.  After just a short time heading south, my cold tolerance has become much less, that’s for certain.   Actually, my love of winter (NOT!!!) has diminished greatly over the last few years but this trip has certainly been a big contributor to my quest to have my own “personal quest to find warmth in my globe”.   Does that mean that I should become a member of AARP too?   Hmm…

Speaking of sidewalk cafe dining on a sunny afternoon.   Does this look like a nice lunch spot?  It was a really fun Cuban spot.

As we walked around town we enjoyed watching a photo shoot in a fountain in front of the Lightner Museum, which is housed in one of the old grand hotels.  It was fun to see the model vamp for the camera.   The person on the left was prompting her to do particular poses and the two photographers were catching the action.   There she was wading in the water with plenty of tourists watching her every move.  I expect that sort of behavior takes plenty of self confidence. After the first model was done and plenty wet, this one waded in for her “swim time”.   Ok, enough of that.  We moved on. We visited a really interesting museum housed in one of the two old Flagler Hotels in St Augustine.   The Lightner Museum who’s collection was billed as a showing of “a collector of collections”.   They have a very nice website and some neat panoramas.   Lightner’s collection is really an inside view of what Victorian collectors surrounded themselves with and included every sort of “collectible” you could imagine from fine china to cigar wrappers.   Collecting is certainly a very human trait and one that built to a fever pitch during the Guilded Age.  If you like “suff” this is your museum.   Me, all I could think about was dusting all of that stuff.  The exterior of the museum is about as ornate as what is inside.   The architects that designed this for Flagler went on to design the New York Public Library. I was particularly struck by the inner courtyard complete with a koi pond and some very well fed koi. Imagine strolling around the courtyard after your morning swim in what was, at the time, the largest indoor pool anywhere. The museum is perhaps as much about Victorian excess as ingenuity.   This “music box”, and they have several amazing examples that push the limit of this craft, plays both a violin and piano and is a good example of how elaborate they can be.   Think about how many musicians these little babies put out of work.  I wonder if there were pickets outside of the companies that were manufacturing these?  Didn’t they have any heart for starving musicians?  Perhaps they were retrained as waiters, a tradition that seems to have stood the test of time.

One of the Flagler hotels is now the home of Flagler College.    Talk about ornate.  I hope that they have a good endowment.  It’s a good thing that they don’t have to cope with freezing winters and the pollution of a big city which would certainly raise havoc with the fine detail.
I wonder if the granting of tenure brings with it an office in this tower?  Me?  Yes, I would live there.
Ok, I think that my last few posts have included photos of these particular buildings.  Enough already!!!  Well, why not more photos of the town green.  It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…  I wish that I had said that. Finally, after viewing the photo shoot in the fountain I decided that I needed my own “shoot”.   I just (especially) love Brenda in hats. I think that I will have to leave it at that for now.