On the Water with As You Wish: March 13 Cocoa Village to New Smyrna Beach

March 13

Here it is Friday the 13^th and so far – knock on wood – no unpleasant surprises. It’s been a busy few days. One of the reasons we wanted to spend extra time in Cocoa Village, aside from it being a very cute town, was its proximity to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). We’ve been wanting to visit it for several years after being exposed to some space race history while in Huntsville Alabama at the U.S Space and Rocket Center. I’ve got to say, the KSC did not disappoint. Extremely well done.

Apollo capsule with re-entry scars and all

The bus tour out and around the launch pads, past the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building and out to the Saturn 5 rocket display area let you grasp the overall scale of this facility and the machinery involved. I found the display of Atlantis, the last shuttle to perform a mission, personally very moving. Looking at the actual machine that had made multiple trips to space and then carried it’s crews back safely and being reminded of the tragedy of the Challenger and Columbia accidents filled me with pride for the accomplishments but saddened my heart for those we lost. The technological challenges that were faced and overcome at a time with such limited computing power still amazes me. It seems a shame that somewhere along the way during those 135 shuttle missions we became almost complacent in our interest in space travel to the point that shuttle launches barely even got a mention on the nightly news. It was interesting to hear about all the new things going on with the next generation of space travel, our explorations into deeper space, and the partnerships with outside vendors like SpaceX, Boeing and Blue Origin.

Martha at the rocket garden

Shuttle boosters were huge

Shuttle Atlantis on display with cargo bay open

After such a long and busy day, we mostly took it easy on Thursday hanging around the marina, doing laundry, reprovisioning and waiting for Jamie and Trish on “About Time” to catch up to us from their trip in the Keys. They had hoped to get over to the Bahama’s, but winds were simply too strong with no end in sight for a decent crossing. They decided to just head up the coast and make their way to St. Augustine and cross their wake to complete their journey. With Russ and Jax also in the marina on “InQuest”, what better thing to do but go check out the local breweries. There are two breweries in Cocoa Village and Russ and I had already visited Bugnutty Brewery so our group headed into town for flights at Old Oar Brewery. Needless to say, we had a good time. Finished off the evening back at Bugnutty for a final sampling and a few hands of the card game Never Have I Ever. Now that’s got some weird stuff in it!!

Lining up for our beer tasting at The Old Oar Brewery

The aftermath

Sunset at Cocoa Village

Today’s trip wasn’t particularly long but because we would be going through several NO WAKE Manatee Zones and were trying to time our arrival to coincide with minimal current, we needed to get an early start. So once again we were off the docks before the sun had fully risen. At least today the scenery changed a bit on us. Things went from the fairly wide-open expanses of the Indian River to a narrow tree lined and manatee filled passage called the Haulover Canal. That lead us into the shallow waters of Mosquito Lagoon with its many islands and the conclusion of our day at New Smyrna Beach. Plenty of wildlife viewing today with multiple dolphin sightings along the way, the aforementioned Manatees, plenty of pelicans, wood storks and for the first time we finally saw an island with a colony of Pink Roseate Spoonbills.