How We Wasted Away a Month in Titusville

O.K., so truthfully most of it wasn’t wasted time…we just couldn’t believe we ended up staying docked at a marina there for an entire month! That was the longest Radio Waves had sat still since being on the hard over the winter back in Michigan! The folks at Titusville Municipal Marina sure made it hard for us to leave! We had planned on staying on a mooring ball to save money, but they offered us a dock at a rate we couldn’t refuse, and boy were we glad we did. It made life sooo much easier! They had nice clean restrooms, with nice hot water for showers (something we may have actually wasted a bit of…), a huge laundry room and great staff.

So anyhow, what did we do for an entire month? Well, our biggest reason for the stop was so we could visit with family. A few days before Christmas we rented a car and drove to the Orlando airport where our boys were flying in from Detroit and Los Angeles. We were so excited to see them and grateful that we could spend Christmas together! Once we wrangled our way through airport traffic and picked them up, we headed to Fruitland Park, Florida where my parents, Jim’s mom, my sister and two nieces all live, and had a great time visiting with everyone over the next several days!

We spent New Year’s Eve with friends from Daytona who had invited us to their home for a small New Year’s Eve get together. We were docked about 45 minutes from where they live, so once again we had friends spending their precious time driving around to pick us up. We have some of the best friends! Thanks Mike and Janet!

And then of course there was the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day and there was no way we were gonna miss watching the Buckeyes beat Notre Dame! Unfortunately it was on ESPN, so we weren’t able to watch it on the boat. The marina has a small lounge with a TV that has cable, so we made sure to get there before the game started so we’d have dibs on which Bowl game to watch! We were a bit worried because the Citrus Bowl was on at the same time, and Florida was playing Michigan. Unbelieveably, no one else came by the entire time we were watching the game…except for two guys from Ohio!

At one point during our stay we decided that we could really use some exercise, and Canaveral National Seashore was only about 15 miles away….so….we did what any beach loving, boat living folks would do and rode our bikes. There and back. Over 30 miles total. OMG. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for Jim’s bike, one of his tires developed a leak and we had to stop every few miles to pump some air back into it. Jim wasn’t thrilled, but I was happy to have the mini rest breaks.

We also patronized the local brewery, the Playalinda Brewing Company. But you all probably already knew we’d do that, right?!? I mean it was within walking distance and they had some really good beer. We even met some folks there one night that let us crash their Cards Against Humanity game. Turns out one of the couples are kindred spirits. They sold their house in Utah, as well as all their possessions to travel the United States in an RV with their two teenage daughters. After a year of traveling they decided they liked this area and now own The Wayward Traveler’s Inn in Mims, FL. We are looking forward to checking it out when we return to Florida this summer…assuming we ever make it out of here!

Probably the biggest single reason we were glad that we ended up at a dock and not on a mooring ball was the amount of provisioning that we did while we were in Titusville. Holy smokes! You’d think we were planning for an apocolypse, instead of several months in the Bahamas! We hit up Sam’s Club, Costco, and Wal-mart…as well as a few others. The intent was to stock up on whatever we could fit in the boat (without sinking it!) that either isn’t going to be available once we reach the Bahamas, or else would just be too expensive there. Beer. Take beer as an example. It is certainly available in the Bahamas…if you’re willing to pay $50 to $60 for a case for plain ol’ beer! Yikes! So, yes, we have several cases of beer stashed wherever we could fit them. We also have food stuffs stored ALL OVER the boat. We used a spreadsheet (started with one created by The Boat Galley) to keep track of where we put everything, or otherwise we’d never be able to find anything when we need it!

And then, finally, we could find no more excuses to stay. We pulled away from the dock in thick fog on January 9th and continued our trek south.