15 April 2025
Clark and I were up at 6:30 this morning to prepare for a car trip with our friends, Franklin and Cathy, to travel to Melbourne, Florida. C & F sold their boat a couple of years ago and have been looking for a replacement ever since. Clark saw a candidate advertised via the AGLCA (America's Great Loop Cruising Assoc).
The owners are in the midst of traveling the Great Loop. The boat was located at the Eau Gallie Yacht Basin. With checkout time for the boat owners being 11:00, we needed to arrive by 9:00 to get a boat tour. I agreed to go along for the outing but said I would not be touring the boat. I would be the proverbial 5th wheel. Clark on the other hand would be an asset in their decision-making process.
The car ride to the marina took less time than planned. The three of them were on the boat and checking it out by 8:30!
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| Getting down to business on the upper helm |
I brought my Kindle with me and sought out a place to sit and read while I waited. I figured they would be busy for at least an hour, so I had plenty of time to myself. I found the covered, outdoor kitchen on the property and made myself at home. It gave nice protection from the sun.
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| Outdoor Kitchen with Grill |
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| Sign in Outdoor Kitchen (nice motto - even though I don't drink wine) |
After a very short while, however, the chill in the air forced me to get up and move. I decided to prowl around the area. I checked out the colorful fire pit,
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| Fire Pit for Docktail Sessions |
and then I wandered the marina docks for a while.
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| Quite a few sailboats here |
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| Boat named "Goodnight Moon" |
The marina is small, and in no time at all, I had seen all there was to see here. I remembered there was a sign at the entrance, and always thinking about material for the Blog, I decided to walk up for pictures. I found a marker detailing the history of the marina.
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| Established 1896 as terminus for steamboat Yacht Basin commenced 1920 |
Just beyond the sign, I noticed a small park and decided to wander over to look around. The sign "Clergy Parking", in the park, caught my interest.
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| Small park near Eau Gallie Yacht Basin entryway |
Across the street, I saw a church which I later learned was St. John's Episcopal Church.
As I stood there scoping out the area, I saw an elderly man walking through the park. He looked at me a few times and then apparently made a decision to approach me and asked, "Would you like to see my church?" With time to kill and a great deal of curiosity, I said, "Oh, yes please. That would be wonderful." I spent the next hour walking through the church and learning its history and hidden secrets.
The man I met in the park was named Richard - a mason by trade, who is 90 years old and moved to this area in 1958 to take a job at Boeing working at the Kennedy Space Center. Over time he became the "warder" (caretaker) of this church property, and his self-proclaimed first love is to show off his church.
He had the keys to the church, but before opening the door to go in, he pointed to a ragged-edged section of the sidewalk, and said "This is where the old church used to be before it was relocated." He then opened the door and showed me the church as it is today.
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| Old / Original Church |
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| Altar |
Stained-glass windows on either side of the old church depict Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The church was enlarged after it was moved. White walls indicate the "new" portion of the church.
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| "Big Bang" depicted above Adam & Eve with the apples (that look more like oranges) |
Another of the newer stained-glass windows, depicts a rocket launch. Renegades!!
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| Rocket launch seen through palm fronds |
Having shown me the sanctuary and the controversial windows, Richard asked if I would like to see the organ pipes which are original to the church. He took me back outside, down the side of the church, and in through a side entrance.
Oh my! I expected to see a bunch of pipes. What I saw was much more fascinating. For example, the wooden structure below is part of the organ pipe setup. The openings on the side open and close to change the tone.
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| Richard told me, "These are pipes!" |
Pipes, pipes and more pipes of all sizes stuffed into a cramped area.
The original pipe organ is long gone. Instead they now have an electronic organ that still uses the existing pipes to produce the sound. Richard showed me the wired panel that makes the magic happen.
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| So many tiny wire connections! |
Richard explained that when a key is depressed, a signal is sent to the appropriate pipe to produce its tone. Amazing!
Richard was an overflowing fountain of information. Hopefully, I got the basic description of how the organ works correctly. I wished Clark had been there to see it all. Being an engineer and a musician, he would have loved the tour.
After exiting the pipe room, we stood in front of the church talking for a good while longer. Richard explained that the church owns the park across the street and uses it for occasions like Easter Sunrise service. That explained the "Clergy Only" parking space!
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| Park belonging to St. John's Episcopal Church |
Richard was full of stories and told me an interesting one about one such service. As a flock of parakeets flew through the trees, Richard told me that at least a dozen live there. I could not make them out in the distance. Richard new them by sound. He said they are green and huge in size - more like a parrot. They squawk loudly. He told me, that on one particular service in the park, the parakeets were so loud that the sermon could not be heard over the noise they were making.
Richard made a point of telling me he was 90 years old. He grumbled about the church not letting him "climb" (I assume ladders) any more! He told me about his 92 year old friend at another church that is allowed to climb! Not fair!
Before I left, Richard pointed out the cross on the front of the church. It was his idea to paint the casing around the topmost windows in red to present a cross for the church.
Richard was hesitant to pose for a picture. After replacing a missing palm frond from the front door, he posed for me. I caught him mid-sentence.
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| Richard busy telling me a story! |
When Richard found me in the park, he had been roaming the park looking for fire ants to treat while waiting for someone to arrive to discuss repair work on the iron railings on the property. Busy man! The man was about an hour late. When he finally arrived, it was time for me to leave.
When I got back to the marina, I found Clark sitting to one side while Franklin and Cathy finished talking with the boat owner. No one knew I had wandered off, and apparently, no one had missed me in the least. No one asked me what I did while I waited for them. I decided to let them read it in the blog!
We left the marina shortly after 10:00 a.m. and still had a full day ahead of us. On the way home they stopped at the beach near where they live just to show us the view.
Having talked about the Jungle Trail, after lunch, Franklin and Cathy decided to give us a tour of the wilderness area at the north end of the Jungle Trail. They drove us down part of the trail to a wildlife refuge for a short hike down the Centennial Trail.
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| Ev, Franklin, Cathy at the "Strangling Tree" |
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| Ev & Clark |
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| 2 trees in one |
We followed a walkway that showed, in order of year founded, the national wildlife refuge sites of our 50 states.
It went the full length of the walkway
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| Pelican Island - bird's eye view |
Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a turtle and walked over to check him out. I looked at him and he looked at me. When Cathy went to get a closer look at him, he took off in a hurry and went down into his burrow.
We exited the park trail at route A1A (Jimmy Buffet Highway) and managed to cross the highway to the far side where the park continues on to the beach.
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| Cathy & Ev |
We made our way back across A1A and to the car and continued to the end of the Jungle trail. Franklin showed us one more park at the south end. The trail was used to access and bring out the produce from the orchards that once stood along the trail. There was a dock on the south end at the park where the produce was loaded onto boats for transportation to the markets.
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| Bridge Tender Park |
Our parks tour ended some time after 4:00. Franklin drove us back to Don's house where we have the boat docked. When we got there it was near "Martini Time" (circa 5:00). Martini Time is a Don and Franklin "thing". We do not imbibe but we enjoy the conversation and comradery. We sat on Don's creek-facing porch and watched the sun set over the water.
When Franklin and Cathy left, we made our way to the boat where, having had a fancy lunch, I scrounged some food together for a quick dinner.
Wow! What an action-packed and wonderful day!
16 April 2025
Depart: private dock 9:00
Arrive: same private dock 10:10
Our first order of business today was to untie the boat and take it to the City Marina to get the holding tank pumped out. Having been here a week, it was time to get that job done. Moving the boat to the pump-out station and getting back to dock was simple. Getting the pumpout to actually empty the tank took more effort than we like.
It started out slow-but-sure. I watch the meter and can see if it is emptying and how fast it is emptying. This started on slow and got worse. slow - stop - slow - stop! It eventually stopped completely at about 50%, so we had to come up with another approach. From past experience on the trip south, we knew that we could help by putting pressure into the tank through the new air vent installed this past summer. As soon as Clark applied the exhaust end of the vacuum cleaner to the vent, things started to flow and quickly.
With that job done we headed back to Don's dock and got ourselves retied. Clark filled the water tanks and took out the trash and recyclables. We continue to wait for word on when the dinghy work will be completed. No news yet!
The other day when I was out on errands with Cathy, I got a phone call from Clark. "Do you want to go see 'Beautiful' playing at the Riverside Theater?" My first reaction was, "We saw that on Broadway!" Then, knowing Clark is a musician and how much he likes Carole King, I decided that if he wanted to go (and clearly he did) then we should go.
The performance was today at 2:00. I asked Clark how he intended to get to the theater, fully expecting him to say by bicycle, and he surprised me by saying we should walk. The theater is about a mile away, so he said we should allow 45 minutes to get there comfortably before the show started. We changed into theater-going togs and got on our way. Once again, we had lovely weather for a walk, i.e. not too hot!
The show was marvelous. There were only 4 seats together when Clark bought two tickets and they were the best seats in the house, so we paid top dollar. It was worth every cent!
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| In the lobby |
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| Playbill |
We got out of the show around 5:00. As we walked back to the boat, I bemoaned the fact that I had yet again failed to plan anything for dinner. (Each day, I do not know what the day will bring in terms of meals. It is hard to predict the future around here.) Clark said we could go for pizza and top it off with another stop at Kilwins for ice cream. Sounded like a great plan to me!
For this, we grabbed our bicycles to ride into town. Clark had read the menus of the various options around and picked Nino's Café as our destination. We decided to dine outdoors for fresh air and to keep an eye on our bikes locked up against a palm tree nearby.
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| Outdoor seating at Nino's Café |
We ordered a medium-sized pizza. I ate 2 slices. Clark ate the rest. I was stuffed after 2. I don't know where he puts the food! He had a salad before the pizza!
Given what we had eaten, when we left there, I figured that ice cream was "off the table", and we would bike back to the boat. Nope! He headed straight to Kilwins as planned. We both got ice cream. After deliberating with myself, I decided I might have room for a small cup.
As we ate our ice cream, we watched the sun get lower and lower in the sky. We wanted to be "home" before sunset to avoid having to worry about bike lights, etc. Our path took us first across Route A1A and then Highway 60. Daylight was definitely preferable.
We were back at the boat in time to take a sunset picture from Don's backyard.
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