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| Canaveral National Seashore |
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| Greater Yellow Legs |
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| Northern Pin-tail Duck |
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| Smyrna Dunes Park |
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| Purple Sandpiper |
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| Snowy Egret |
R
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| Sandwich Turn |
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| American Bittern |
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| Great Blue Heron Goes Spear Fishing |
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| Savannah Sparow |
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| Green Winged teal Duck |
Well it is now Feb. 23. We have been enjoying our extra time
here in Titusville. We are glad we stayed to see after Dick. The weekend after
David took him to the doctors he got very sick. We convinced him he should go
to the emergency room to get checked out. The good news is that the hernias
didn’t have any intestine twisted in them. He now has an appointment to see a
surgeon tomorrow. We will see what happens next.
A few weeks ago we went birding in the Orlando Wetland Park.
It is about a 30-minute drive from here. It has miles of dikes you can walk on
between the wetlands. We started out on a 2 ½ mile loop. Seeing lots of birds
and gators. At one point we had to wait for a gator to cross the dike so we
could continue. Well we were about 2 miles around the loop when David noticed
he lost the lens cap to his new camera. There was a bench with a beautiful view
so I stayed with all of the birding gear (scope, cameras, binos, backpacks and
water bottles) so David could quickly back track to where we last had to put
the cap on the camera (about 1/2 a mile to check). Well just around the corner
was the first obstacle, remember the gator that we had to wait to cross the
dike. With in a few minutes of David leaving I hear a growl/roar. What the
hell! It’s then behind me, all around me. I use the binos to check out where I
first thought it came from. Sure enough I get to see my first gator growl/roar.
It was about 14 feet long, sticking it’s head straight up out of the water
along with the tail straight up, it almost looked like a U. The throat billowed
out then the growl/roar. It got them all started. After the gator did this
about 6-7 times with others around responding it stopped. Well I continued to
bird and gator watch thinking David should be back any minute. After about 45
minutes I got worried so I called David. He had backtracked the whole 2 miles
because when the gator roared he thought it was following him because of where
the sounds were coming from so once he got to the ½ mile mark he didn’t want to
come back the same way to me because of the roars. He was freaked out (scared).
Needless to say we survived to tell the story.
Last weekend Abe invited us down to his place. We went down
on Thursday because he had the next 3 days off. When he got off work we went to a brewery for beer and
burgers and met a couple of his friends.
Friday I dropped off David and Abe at the beach to go out on
their paddleboards. I forgot to bring a bathing suit so I went out to buy one.
David said it was a challenge to stay on the board for more than 3 seconds.
Later in the day we went for a walk to check out a property for sale that Abe
thought he might be interested in. It was about 2 miles from where he lives
now. It was a great walk along the ocean avenue. It turned out to be an old
hotel turned into a co-op. The realtor was showing it to a friend so we got to
go inside. She also told us about another co-op for rent right across from the
beach so we checked that out on our walk back. When we got back to Abe’s
neighborhood he saw an open house sign so we had to check out the 1.9 million
dollar house. It was interesting
to see how the wealthy live. It had an elevator, marble staircase, and a master
bathroom bigger than Abe’s apartment and a kitchen with 2 of everything,
needless to say over the top.
Saturday we took another walk to the jetty about a mile and
a half from Abe’s. He has a great apartment right at the foot of the
intercostals waterway bridge, once over it you have to walk past the mansions
to get to the public park to access the beach. Late afternoon Abe and David
loaded up the boards and drove to join a group of boarders for a full moon
night paddle in Lake Worth inlet. They left before dark and paddled out to Peanut
Island to watch the moonrise then headed back to the main land. I‘ve only been
on the board twice and knew it would be too much for me for a first trip
boarding so with nothing better to do I cleaned Abe’s apartment and did
laundry. The guys came back with some great pizza to end the night.
Sunday we packed up after breakfast with Abe and headed out
to do some birding on the way home. David and I have been using a birding app
on our phones to find birding hot spots that have birds we haven’t seen before.
We have been having a great time exploring new spots and finding new birds.
Before we left for Abe’s we poured a ½ gallon of vinegar
down the aft head to clean it out while we were gone. Well good news is that it
cleaned it out but it also loosened up the mineral deposits that have built up
in the hoses over 14 years to the point that pipes got blocked. We borrowed a
snake from Dick. After working the pipes we decided it was best to order new
hoses and replace what we could get to. Now mind you when they built the boat
they didn’t consider replacement issues so they cable tied the hoses together
under the floor where we couldn’t reach it to cut it. After much swearing we
got help. Paid a guy with thinner arms than David to try to reach and cut them.
He did and in 2 minutes the old pipe was out and the new one in. Thankfully we
stayed at Dick and Andrea’s while the bathroom was torn apart for 3 day.
I have been making bracelets with a new design using a
button, beads and leather. It’s a lot of fun. I’ll need to send a package to
the farm stand so they can be sold while I’m gone.
Yesterday we went to a Greek festival for the food and
dancing. David had never seen any Greek dancing. When I ate one of the cookies
it brought back a flood of memories for me from Worcester. The 2 decker I grew
up in was a block from a Greek orthodox church and a Greek family moved in on
the first floor. Because of the language issue I never got the name of the
cookie but always tried to see how they were made. Yia-yia didn’t have a recipe
written down. She used her hands, a little of this a little of that.
After lunch we had to go to the beer festival that was in
the next town. They had 60 different beers, some we had had before. I was
driving back so I only tasted a few. David enjoyed many tastings. The down side
to the day was getting back to the car (we parked on the other side of the mall
from the brew tasting) someone backed out of their spot and took the left rear
wheel well cover and bumper off our car. We were able to bang things back in
place but another issue to deal with. Tomorrow the insurance adjuster checks it
out.
We have checked weather out and it looks as if we will have
a good window Wednesday into Thursday to go south to Miami. We hope to leave
Titusville on Tuesday afternoon and go the 20 miles down to the lock at Cape
Canaveral. We will anchor and wait to get through at 8am Wednesday.
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