Another disaster of a day...saved!

Well, so much for attention getting headlines...now I can bore you with The Rest of the Story!:)

We picked up the anchor yesterday (Sunday) morning in somewhat calmer conditions than we had anchored the night before. It wasn't an unpleasant night, but we are always very aware of the sounds of the boat, and I guess that means we don't sleep as soundly as we might in a Marina, all tied up!
We love being at anchor, but some conditions are just worse than others.

We got underway just as the sun was poking it's nose out from under the grey could and drizzle. That was as far as it got, unfortunately!:( The rest of the day was miserable. We both had our sweaters on, and I eventually went below to don fleece sweat pants. Cold feet, but never mind!

We didn't even open the eisenglas to take photos, so cold was it, so most of the pics are through the plastic, sorry!

I took this photo not long after we got underway. I do like to keep a record of the charts when we begin for the day, and again when we turn the engines off at the end of the journey.
We have just left our little island refuge, such as it was, and with some trepidation pulled out into the ICW again.

We spent the morning wiping the rain off the front windows on the fly deck. No windshield wipers up there. We could have come downstairs to the pilot house, but we like the 360 degree views we get up stairs, and it was really important to have those, in these conditions.

The waves were now white caps, and the wind was howling through all the holes on the fly deck...it is incredibly stressful with all this stimulus, and we were pretty tired, by noon-ish. We made the executive decision to call it a day, and pulled into the anchor zone on the left before the bridge, in this chart. It was 7.5ft where we anchored, and slightly out of the wind and rain.
The chart shows 11.3ft in the channel. This is just outside of the town of Cocoa, Florida. You can just see the name Merritt Island, on the top right. We had come to see a boat, back in Feb. 2013, at a marina on the Island, which is very long and skinny.

The rain cleared, after we set the anchor, and this photo shows some patches of blue sky poking through. These condos are the only high rise on this side of the ICW, the others are all on the right side, in Cocoa Beach, across the bridge and on the Atlantic Coast.

This decision to call it quits for the day was a bit inspired, as it turned out. Not only did the sun come out, but we were able to take the dinghy to shore and go walking. There was a live music being played at the lovely park, on the shoreline, and we went to see that this was a local African American church revival for Easter Sunday...the music was not to our taste and we were grateful when it stopped around 5pm!
We strung the dinghy up at the public dock, and left out kitchen trash bin in the boat...the round orange thing.
We carried our life vests with us, on our walking tour of the Historic District.

We are parked not far off the ICW, and as a result got quite a lot of wake from the passing boats. There is usually a no wake, or min. wake zone before and immediately after each bridge, but the locals seem to be mostly blind, illiterate or both, and make no effort to slow, at all! aieeee!

The lovely park with it's large playground. It was very clean and tidy, and obviously a lot of care is given to it's maintenance. How nice!:)

Of course we had to visit anything that was open, on this Easter Sunday. The little cooperative gallery had many really nice artworks in it, but alas, we have no room for fripperies!

Cocoa's Historic District really was very pretty...and clean. The local community have much pride in this place, obviously.

 I was delighted to see, in this old traditional Hardware Store window, the crocks and creamware..very hard to find!

...there is always something to amuse us...this little Chihuahua had it's own leather jacket..which you cant see here, sorry.

 What a delightful place......and I fell in love with the wrought iron gates, here....

 We were most impressed with everything...cant you tell? lol.

I just love Amaryllis, and these were worth photographing!

 

 Lots of funky shops, and of course an ice-cream shop! We had to have one...we deprived people...and enjoyed the first few bites, but we are so used to not eating sugary things, that the rest of the treat wasn't that enjoyable.
Most of the winter visitors have left the region, so there wasn't a lot of traffic out and about, and a few people on the streets, but most were to be found inside the restaurants.

As always, there are interesting shops and office buildings...so advertising gave us pause...like this one. We couldn't for the life of us think what Vibrational Medicine would be, but we sure came up with some fun suggestions.:)

 

A lovely Magnolia Grandiflora was outside the English/Irish Pub...aren't their flowers glorious?

 

I have to say, this is the very first Dolls House shop I have ever come across...and I always wanted a Dolls house, as a child. This is lovely:)

 So many of the places in the south that we have visited, have this kind of painted wall...showing the history of the area. obviously Cocoa has a rich past!

Love this Arts and Crafts  style church...it changed hands a few times to different denominations, but they  have restored it beautifully.

The Easter Cross outside the local Baptist Church...

Sorry...more flowers:) Lovely color on this hibiscus.

And the Oleander were in full bloom in front of the condo.

Opposite the condo, we walked along the sidewalk admiring some of the old homes, one street back from the waterfront...which would have had lovely water views, until some idiot blocked it with the horrid looking pink condo.
This tile was embedded in the wall surrounding one lovely home....

 

...and this little squirrel looks like a bunny in the headlights...well, maybe the flash? He was literally two feet from us!

 

We had walked a large square around the Historic District of Cocoa, and were now back along the waterfront. See the covered jetty on the right side of the photo? that is where the dinghy was parked. The lovely park is now on our left.

No Easter service is complete without the bouncy castle???

When we got back to the boat, Waz was putting the dinghy away and found this little fish. This is the second self-fished fish we have had on the boat...they get smaller!!:) not big enough to eat, unfortunately! We had thought we might go back to town for dinner, but I rustled up an omelet, some stir fried veges and left over pumpkin mash. It worked! and we had chopped apples tossed in cinnamon, lemon zest and allspice and lightly whipped cream, for dessert! fit for a king and queen:)