Titusville Take Care Of Its Cruisers....BIG TIME!!!!

So Cocoa Beach was interesting and while we didn’t find the “surfer beach, we did come across what must be one of the biggest surfing stores we’ve ever seen!  It’s called Ron Jon’s Surf Shop and believe me….it has to be as big as a full city block!  So we had some fun wandering around the store and then went across the street to the Shark Pit Bar and Grill for one of the best burgers I’ve had in a long time!

 

Cocoa Beach

Ron Jon's Surf Shop

The little village of Cocoa was just a delight, with cute boutiques, little street side bistro’s and a wonderful old fashioned ice-cream parlour…..guess where we ended up….the ice-cream parlour!  And all along the street music was playing to the tune of 60’s pop…it was hard not to just dance my way around and you really couldn’t help singing along!

 

City of Cocoa

 

We were very keen to see the Kennedy Space Centre and asked around at the nearby marina, unfortunately, they were of little or no help, assuring us we would have to rent a car if we wanted to anything at all, including grocery shopping!  When we asked about the next town along, Titusville, we were advised that the situation would be the same.  Well, off we went anyway, to see what the next stop had on offer and are we ever happy we did!

 Titusville Municipal Marina is a true gift to the cruising community.  The staff are extremely friendly and helpful, the facilities are clean and well cared for and I would recommend this as a stop on any ICW cruisers itinerary.  The amenities are awesome and they even have a free pump out station!  As if all of this weren’t enough, they even have a free…yes, that’s right, I said FREE, shuttle so we hopped aboard and headed off to the Kennedy Space Centre.  Honestly, we were at a point where we thought we weren’t going to get to the space centre as it would have cost us about $200.00 by the time we rented a car and so on, so we were just delighted!  Titusville, we salute you and the good people you have working hard for us cruiser’s!  If any of you do stop and take advantage of the shutte, don’t be afraid to offer a little donation to keep it going!  (http://www.titusville.com/sectionindex.asp?sectionid=52)

Our transit between Cocoa and Titusville was not uneventful.  We had a short storm cell come through where our visibility was about 100 feet and then to add to the excitement of this particular adventure, as we neared a set of overhead cables and checked the charts, the notation showed a mere 44 feet of clearance!!!  I don’t have to tell you that with our mast at 60 feet, we were more than a little concerned and no matter who we hailed on the radio, no one could “confirm” the cable height so we circled in front of it for a bit and considered our options….truthfully, we really thought we would be on our way back to Cocoa for some facts!  As we circled, I jumped on the i-phone (reach OUCH!!! In terms of $’s ) and did a look up of overhead cable heights on the ICW and found a site, current to January 2013 that confirmed we were good to go, so, hearts thumping, we motored through and it was no problem.  Gregg’s heart definitely got a good workout that day!

Kennedy Space Centre great fun and very informative.  We did it all, including the Space Shuttle Simulator and pictures in space suits!

 

We are now tucked into our little home for night and will enjoy a quiet day of of strolling the townsite and provisioning tomorrow before we continue our journey up the ICW.

 

Until next time….

 

Love and hugs all around,

Shelley and Gregg