Fort Pierce to Cocoa

We decided to leave Fort Pierce and anchor out one night.  It was a nice, easy 22-mile run, so we took our time leaving Ft. Pierce and arrived at the Wabasso anchorage in the late afternoon.  On the way we passed an island rookery. It looked like mostly pelicans in this closeup of a small portion of the island.

A nice display of our flag at a state park.

There were lots of nice homes in this stretch between Vero Beach and Melbourne.  We liked these much better than those further south since the lots (estates is probably a better word) were much bigger and didn't feel so crowded.

As in the last few days, lots of traffic was heading southbound.  Today was definitely catamaran day.

But also lots of powerboats as well.

Since we did not put the dinghy in the water, I did not get a good shot of the anchorage, but it was easy in, easy out, in 9-10 feet of water at the foot of the Wabasso bridge.

The beauty of the anchorage was the next morning at sunrise - been a while since we have had one of these to post.  Look closely and you will see a small fishing boat heading our way from a distance.

Then we were back in open water for most of the day again, with lots of small islands along the way.

Got a nice shot of an ultralight which was about a half-mile away.

We had several schools of dolphins join us.  I counted three in this group and managed to time one of the pics with one of them out of the water.

This was interesting - a sailboat with sails out, but they were also using 2 dinghies, one on each side, with outboards running to help power the boat forward.  

Welcome to Cocoa, FL.  I've always heard of Cocoa "Beach" - it's about 8 miles east of here, with Merritt Island between the two.

Downtown Cocoa's riverfront.

Here's the same area from the riverbank after we got docked and checked out the town by bike.

Cocoa probably has the prettiest area of riverfront homes and scenery we've seen on the trip.

This is one of the crossing streets.  Look closely at the end of the street and you can see a small patch of blue at the riverfront.

The tourist attraction for Cocoa is a lot of shops in a downtown area called Cocoa Village.  It's nicely done if you like that kind of thing.  We're just not shoppers.

They have a large city park right on the waterfront.

And parked right at the entrance to the park was a real nice antique Mustang.

We had a nice dinner at Murdock's.

And, attended church at First Baptist this morning, about a half-mile away.

I took the rest of Sunday off to watch football and rest up.  Rhonda took some more strolls around town  and returned with some really good key lime pie and cinnamon rolls.  In the meantime, Help Me Rhonda has been resting up at the dock - long run tomorrow.  It's 60 miles to a small town called Port Orange, between New Smyrna Beach and Daytona Beach.  While there, we are going to visit one of Rhonda's first cousins that she has not seen in over 20 years.  

But before we call it a day, here's another good pelican shot, this one solid white in some pretty nice water.  Still enjoying the new camera.

See you in Port Orange.