Reunion on the Space Coast

On Tuesday morning we headed to Melbourne to meet up the the Gavonie’s, the Shirleys and Uncle Nip. It was a short ride just under 23 miles where we tucked into a marina just off the Eau Gallic river which happened to be just 3 miles from where the Gavonie’s live. Steve and Denise are another lucky couple that that took Denise’s parents retirement home over after their passing. Nip and the Gavonie’s showed up almost minutes after we got settled in the slip. The fun started and did not stop until well into the evening. The Gavonie’s were kind enough to host us at their house over night and fed us a fabulous breakfast.

We told them we decided to stay a week as the accommodations and hospitality was so good. It was only the second time in over a year I had slept on land! It was so much fun reminiscing about all the fun times we have had in the past together back in good old Virginia Beach. A special shout out to the Shirleys who made us feel very special by trekking across the state to see us one last time before we head out of Florida. 

On Wednesday Steve Gavonie took Sue to the grocery store and then dropped us off at the boat. They decided to drive up to Coco Village to meet and spend the afternoon with us.

It turns out that Coco Village is a neat little Florida town. They have a nice courtesy dock that you can stay for free however there is no power or water. From there it is steps from the village. We also did the pilgrimage to the original Ron Jons. When I was 20 I actually went to the original store which was a small low slung surf shop that you would never notice if you drove by. It is now a massive surf shop department store. So as all who go in we all came out with the obligatory tee shirt. After we explored the village and called it a day as we were all a bit “tired” from the previous day’s reminiscing with old friends. There was a bit of a threat of thunderstorms which looked like they would miss us. They didn’t. We watched the storm brew up to our south east and then proceed to track up wind. We saw a water spout about 2 miles down Indian River as the storm approached and slammed right into us. It was about an hour of wind, rain and frequent lightning. I gave a hand to  both sailboats one to my stern, one to my bow as they were really getting beat up. They were getting tossed so hard at the dock they could not get off  their respective boats. Mind you there was a bit of self preservation involved. Well the storms finally moved off and things settled down quite nicely. The good part was it dropped the temps and made sleeping quite nice.