" When Pigs Fly"

Hi all today is Friday. We should be at Adventure Yacht Marina in Port Orange by 4:00 PM this afternoon, but it ain’t going to happen. We are still stuck here in Cocoa Village, FL watching the Florida monsoons. It’s a cool 68 with an East wind about 20 MPH and 94% humidity. We came to this marina late Monday evening.

We had originally chosen a marina further south but decided we could make a few more miles before stopping. We figured we would extend our day by another 20 miles, since it would only be another 2 ¼ hours. The problem was I took the wrong mile marker off in my haste and it turned out to be an additional 35 miles, which added 4 more hours to original plans. Even with my error this location was a good choice.

Cocoa is a much better place to be stuck for than our original location. But after three days of sitting, it’s getting a bit old. The marina is located in what is called Old Cocoa Village; it’s kind of an artzy fartzy area. All the shops are either designer clothes, antiques or some form of art work. There’s no grocery store, gas station, or pharmacy, although there is a cigar store. There is a selection of restaurants, from ice cream shops and pizza to more formal dining and we have noticed an absence of any sort of chain restaurants (not all bad)  in the village area. Now we understand all that changes if you have transportation to cross the Hubert Humphrey Bridge to Merritt Island, but we don’t. 

The village’s most famous claim to fame is the Travis Hardware Store which has occupied the same building for 127 years. Their floors are warped, most likely from past flooding or hurricanes, the ceilings were very high like the building was to have a second floor but for some reason it was omitted in the final design. There was also an odor of age and mustiness, who knows maybe it was mold, it was just a pungent odor when first walking in that diminished after being inside for a while.

This is a working hardware store. We strolled up and down each aisle, there had to be something we needed in here. We looked at all their selections of just about anything you could ever imagine, from a pair of 24” long needle nose pliers, or a 8’ long pipe wrench to straw hats and canes, they had it all. They must do a bang up business too because they are only open M-F 8/4. As interesting as the place was it got old after awhile, maybe we shouldn’t have skipped the metric nut and bolt aisle.

The Travis Hardware Store was the highlight to our downtown tour, with one exception. The night before we saw a man carrying the largest pizza box either one of had ever seen. We just had to see more from where this pizza came. So we went to the pizza place called Ryan’s to witness this huge pizza pie for ourselves. I know an Irish pizza pub sounds a bit strange, but they do boast of a 24” pizza and seeing was believing. We had their small pizza, 16” is small by their standards, and once it was delivered to our table it didn’t last too long.

After  lunch  we continued our walk downtown looking for the cigar store we had seen the night before. Anna stayed outside on the park bench while I went in. While I was in the humidor, Anna came in to ask a question about the flavored coffee that was advertised and the old store owner started hitting on her. I quickly explained to him she was with me. He apologized, but you can’t blame him, she is a very attractive lady and getting even more so since she’s been getting her boater’s glow now.

The weatherman says that we will only have a 60% chance of scattered storms on Saturday so we may try to make the 60 miles up to Port Orange, FL. if the winds lay down. I’ve come to the conclusion that if you’re going to let a Florida storm stop your travel plans you’ll not get very far. Once we get to Port Orange Anna will meet up with her long time friend Amy. I don’t think the beach time they had originally planned will be happening with the continued rainy forecast, but I’m sure they will find something to do, while I find something else to fix on the boat. Hopefully it won’t be the auto-pilot. 

Well I have to go put on a long sleeve tee shirt. It’s getting cool here, however we don’t have any May snow. Ahhhhh, those Midwesteners have the best weather.

See ya on the water