Grills Riverside
We hadn’t circumnavigated Merritt Island in a while, so the merry crew of Captain Andy, Dinghy Admiral Annie, Skipper Troy and Boat Bunny First Class Miss Audrey Hopburn motored out of Marina Village on Friday afternoon and dropped anchor at Ski Island, just West of the Port Canaveral Cruise Ports.
The next day we proceeded counterclockwise through the NASA Haulover Canal, down the Indian River, and anchored off of Grills Riverside. Grills riverside has a great dinghy dock so we launched Bonus Track and with Annie at the helm we docked there and had a delicious lunch of fresh fish and frozen drinks. They even had a dinghy dock valet!
Annie, Troy, and Seadee at Grills (look closely over Annie's left shoulder for Seadee).
Back onboard, we rounded the southern tip of Merritt Island and snuck under the Mathers Bridge before anchoring for the night.
Saturday night was the very important rematch between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Duke Blue Devils. Fortunately, the Tar Heels trounced the Blue Devils and everyone went to bed happy.
Sunday morning proved to be windier than anticipated and we were almost trapped on the south side of Merritt Island, but we did make it home by mid-day. We even fit in an impeller change on the way home. You never know what to expect in a weekend of boating!
The southernmost tip of Merritt Island once held a dragon sculpture known as Annie. The remnants of the green dragon can still be seen today.
A slightly larger ship…
Over the Christmas Break we decided to let someone else cook and steer for a few days and took our first ever cruise — on a cruise ship. Since we live in Merritt Island, Port Canaveral is right next door. In fact, we use the Canaveral Lock routinely to get to the ocean aboard Seadee as it is less than 4 miles away up the Banana River from our home port.
We selected the Carnival Dream for our cruise since it had the itinerary we wanted and generally pretty good reviews. We decided on a 7 day cruise (“Go Big Or Go Home!”) and on December 24th we boarded the ship and began exploring.
Annie & Joel
The Carnival Dream is an enormous vessel! It’s over 1000 feet long with 122 foot beam. The ship was packed on our cruise, and the number of people involved in cleaning and cooking on that ship was dizzying. The food, comedians, and staff were generally pretty good. Our waiter, Joel, was the best waiter on the entire ship. We ate Christmas Dinner at the ship’s steakhouse (The Chef’s Art) and it was excellent, too. The high tea was a bit of fun, and the Serenity Adult-Only area was sooo nice.
The ship docked at Cozumel, Belize, Roatan, and Costa Maya. We were a little disappointed in the cruise ports themselves, but not completely surprised. We are nothing if not spoiled into doing exactly what we want when cruising aboard Seadee. We rode horses in Cozumel, and that was a shore excursion highlight to be sure!
All in all we had a great time and met some wonderful new friends, but it sure was nice to get back in Seadee and be in charge of our own itinerary.
The "whale-tale" exhaust that makes all Carnival Ships recognizable is also on the Dream.
Megayachts to Tiny Bunnies
If you've cruised the ICW in the past 4 years you've seen Newcastle building a megayacht in their building off of the ditch in Palm Coast. Well, it was taking up 180 feet of the fuel dock in St. Augustine when Seadee docked at the City Marina. Apparently the Harbour Island is undergoing sea trials on its way to the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show. It's priced reasonably at $54.9M if you're in the market.
Have you ever seen a Cruising Bunny? Miss Audrey Hopburn joined the crew of Seadee for the first 2 days of the ROCKtoberbest Cruise. Keep watching the blog for more photos of Audrey's contributions.
This Baby Dolphin swam with us for miles, and it took Annie dozens of attempts to get a good picture of him performing his tiny dolphin jumps.
This is what happens if you don't wash your trawler when you get to the dock at night...
This guy wanted to eat our Cruising Bunny for breakfast! Luckily he was asleep and only woke up as we were pulling out of the marina.
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Manatee Movie
We often mention manatees in our posts about the Banana River because they are visible year-round. Today I managed to catch one on video! I shot this footage after we got back from getting fuel this morning, as we were hosing off the fender covers on the dock.
The manatee starring in this movie (click here to watch) took a shine to the dripping water and treated it as his own personal wet-bar.
Coming up to see what the dripping is about...
The reverse roll is much more efficient for catching drips!
Don’t forget to watch the movie (click here to watch)!
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High Tea on the Water
High Tea and Riparian Entertainments abounded aboard Seadee this past weekend as the first “High Tea on the Water” was served. The menu included scrumptous tea sandwiches of the cucumber, egg salad, and ham varieities. There were also chocolate and carrot cakes, and of course tea.
Our guests were Frank, Barbara, and Troy (all the Smith-Bova’s). Troy and Barbara even managed to drink some hot tea in the warm weather. Pinkies up!
The Captain giving an order on the Banana River. Photo by Barbara Smith.
This is the Eco-Tour part of the cruise, when we all look for manatees (we did see a few); they are shockingly hard to spot! Photo by Barbara Smith.
Here's Barbara taking a moment to enjoy the seabreeze, and giving the camera a brief rest.
Troy practiced his trawler driving skills on the Indian River, with a pretty good quartering wind on the stern!
Fort Pierce to Merritt Island
We departed West End, Grand Bahama at 6:30 am and arrived at Ft Pierce at about 4:30pm. By cocktail hour we were anchored, had checked in with our Local Boater IDs (customs), and were enjoying a well-deserved rum punch.
We saw a famous cruising boat on the way home: the Wind Horse. Check out this article, their web site, or search for your own; they have done some really cool and serious cruising.
On Friday we cruised all the way from Ft Pierce to Merritt Island, which took us all day. After a good scrub down, Seadee is sitting contentedly in its home port.
Andy checking in with the HAM Radio Net. They keep track of us to make sure we cross the Gulf Stream successfully.
This photo must have been taken during the 1% of the time that Annie was actually driving on the way home. Hey, somebody has to wash the dishes and make the margaritas!
This little plane went over and over and over us near Vero Beach, just skimming the treetops.
The Wind Horse: we saw them on the Indian River portion of the ICW headed North.
And this is the view of the Wind Horse passing us...they were just a little bit faster -- but just a little!
Stopover at West End
The Captain closing in on the Don't Rock
Do you have any idea how hard it is to take a picture of yourself in front of a rock?
The captain poised to swat a fly - no stowaways (of any species) on Seadee! Lord of the Flies?
Speaking of weather, West End boasts its very own NOAA Weather Station. You can visit it online here and you can see a picture of it below.
There it is: the NOAA West End Weather Station
...and a super-geeky close-up of the weather station's satellite antenna (the one with all the x's)
Merritt Island Weather
