March 16, 2009

Greetings-- Faith and begorrah, 'tis nearly St. Paddy's Day as I write this! I trust all of you will celebrate appropriately, including our like-most-of-us-part-Irish President, Mr. O'Bama! For those of us who live on YOUNG AMERICA, this was a week of late departures, perfectly timed arrivals, visiting with friends and fellow Great Harbor owners and live aboards, and, culminating with a “cross it off the Things To Do Before I Die list” event, the viewing, up close and personal, of the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery! On Monday, we made it to the 9:45 am opening of the Flagler Bridge! To say the Waterway was congested is an understatement. There was traffic aplenty, including a very long ride for a large group on a tour boat called the “Manatee Queen” --seemed as if we followed them forever! We also passed a new sport—when I called out to this fellow “What do you call that?” He replied (duh) “Stand up paddle board.” There you have it. At Stuart, Fl, we meandered about five miles (in very shallow water) up the St Lucie River to meet our friend Bill from POTLUCK. Gen is in Annapolis this week, but the three of us had a yummy dinner (I cooked fish) and a delightful evening. On Tuesday our 'early' start was at 11:30 am. Fred says “We said we're leaving early and we're leaving, so it must be early”. No point in arguing that logic, is there? We passed MOONBEAM and CHUTAY as we went north and they headed south toward Stuart and the west coast of FL. We were on our way to Vero Beach, where we spent an hour or so visiting with Joan and Bruce aboard FOREVER 39. Boating should teach one patience. For instance, when I'm driving the boat, I'll look ahead, and often the water seems to simply end. Nothing ahead but trees, or rocks, or land of some sort. I'm learning that if I just wait, and continue along the way, eventually the landscape shifts and the opening appears, and it's possible to see where the bend in the river will take us. Sometimes I get impatient as I'm plotting our course on the paper chart, and want to turn the page before we get there. On the way to Vero Beach I got impatient with a large bridge for not being where I thought it should be, and decided, foolishly, to turn around and make a new run for it. Run indeed. We were passing the Ft. Pierce Inlet, where the water gathers up from the big, wide ocean, and necks down to a skinny little waterway. Think of it as driving a car (with no foot pedals, only hand controls) when you didn't know the road was icy and the car just changed direction at will. And speeded up by 25% (from 6-8 knots per hour). That is what the water did to the boat at this Inlet. I was oh, so very lucky that I speeded up my 180 turn in time to motor away from that bridge—it was getting very close very fast! Hooray for Fred, who arrived just in time to calmly take the wheel, complete the second turn, and drive us safely on our way. We thought we'd arrived in Cocoa on Wednesday in plenty of time for the shuttle launch. Sure did. The launch was 'scrubbed' and didn't take place until Sunday, but we had a really great time for the rest of the week! On Thursday, Fred found the hardware store of his dreams! Seven buildings with dusty old bins and every imaginable tool! He found the huge wrench and mallet he needed and soon was heading under YA to tighten those pesky propeller nuts, yet again. Later in the day, Barb and Randy (LAZY DOLPHIN) and Neil and Sheila (SILVER QUEEN) arrived in Cocoa after reluctantly leaving the anchorage where they could see the Shuttle on it's Launch Pad. Barb phoned Andy (SEA DEE) who lives in Cocoa, and the three of them came to YA. We then dinghied to LAZY DOLPHIN, where we dropped off Ollie and picked up Neil and Sheila. Dinner was in downtown Cocoa at the Black Tulip. Waterway Guide says this restaurant gets a lot of repeat business. Ask any of us why and we'll share their secret! Friday, Fred and I worked on mail, reunion stuff (we now have a dozen Mangelsdorf cousins coming to Charleston in April), and I read (the Shack). Late in the afternoon the dinghy arrived with our four live aboard buddies, and Andy and Annie arrived by car to take us all to Andy's condo on Merritt Island facing the Banana River. SEA-DEE is happily tucked into the condo's dock, and in addition to the beautiful condo and view, we watched a duck and a sea bird (is it a huge cormorant or an anhinga—snake bird?) in the water. Dinner was a Mexican affair with mango margaritas, lots of delicious food, and leftovers for tomorrow's lunch! On Saturday, we each did our own thing. For Fred and me, that included cleaning the boat, riding the local bus to Wal-Mart—I hate that they always have the hard to find things (skinny bottomed cup for our medicine chest) and that the food prices really knock Publix out of the park—but when you're walking, one stop shopping is a serious bonus! Saturday nite was Mardi Gras in Cocoa. The main street was blocked off—admission charged to enter—and people came from miles around for food and drink, carnival games and rides, and the parade with folks tossing beads from floats. It was fun. Not New Orleans, but fun, and we sat on a bench people watching until the last of the barricades was hauled away. Sunday will go down in our history book in a very, very special way. Neither of us has seen a Shuttle launch, and here we were! Andy is a ham operator and had an audio link to the mission control folks chatting with the astronauts, so we heard the count down live from the person doing the counting! No news commentators adding their two cents. We went first to a restaurant, thinking we'd see the lift off as we ate (7:43:44 was the appointed hour) but the place was so jammed that the consensus was to go to another place on the banks of the creek facing the launch pad. Andy and Annie both drove as there were too many of us for one car. They found parking places immediately opposite the shuttle, and we had less than an hour to wait before the moment arrived. It is hard to describe the sight—Fred's photo gives you an idea... Interestingly, we heard no sound from the launch until the shuttle was 200 miles away and accelerating to about 6000 mph. Within moments the booster rockets deployed and fell, and all we could see was the huge trail of smoke being lit by the sun as the spacecraft reached orbiting speed—an incredible 14000 mph. It was magnificent. And we were hungry. So we joined the long lines of traffic leaving the island—an early launch on a Sunday evening made it a big family event. Had a delicious seafood dinner and said our adieu's, as we all head off in different directions. So that was our spectacular week. Until next time, Be well. Linda and Fred