The first part of this year’s fall cruise was with four other boats from the Queen’s Harbour neighborhood. The plan was for everyone to run to Halifax Marina in Daytona on the first day. Since we are the slow boat of the fleet we decided to leave a day early and run to Palm Coast first to get a jump on the other boats.

We left on Sunday November 15th and ran down through Palm Valley. As we entered the cut a blue hulled DownEaster named Meridian passed us. I recognized the make so asked for a chat on 17. I told him that we used to have a Vicem in our marina but that it was sold and the new owner took it to Rhode Island. He told us that this was the same boat, they had renamed it and were now on their way to their winter home in Key Largo! What were the odds that they would pass us a few miles from the marina it used to reside in! In fact we had just had dinner with the previous owners a week before! We chatted for a while before they took off.

The tide was as high as we ever saw it through Palm Valley. Most of the docks were under water. The dock at the Palm Valley Outdoors Bar And Grill restaurant was busy with every table full.

We passed through St Augustine and arrived at Palm Coast Marina in time to get spruced up and go over to the European Village for an Indian meal. The restaurant was not doing any table service, we had to give our order at the door, then wait to pick up our takeaway which we ate at a table outside the restaurant.

Next day we took on some fuel, walked our dog then meandered to Halifax Marina in Daytona well in advance of the other boats.

Under way we were again hailed on the radio by Meridian, the Vicem yacht who had stopped over in St Augustine. We had another long conversation.

The four other boats and crews eventually joined us one at a time during the afternoon. This evening we looked around for a restaurant that could serve us outside. We found most restaurants were closed or very limited. We found an Asian Fusion restaurant, Ichi Ni San, that had a courtyard and booked a table for ten. When we got there they had moved the table into an inside room which made us somewhat uncomfortable, but we were the only diners in the room. They were not quite staffed for a large group and the service was somewhat slow, but the food was very good.

Next day we left as soon as Bella got her walk and again got a jump on the group. We went through Mosquito Lagoon and past Cape Canaveral.

They soon overtook us though and they were made an audience on the Cocoa Village Marina dock watching us back into our slip on a gusty day! We got into the slip without incident.

That evening we had an outdoor docktail on the balcony overlooking the marina. The wind was still gusting and making things chilly, so we tucked ourselves into a corner and had good conversation and good food which we had all brought to share.

We were staying in Cocoa for a couple of days. Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate. It blew like the dickens and rained often. We chatted about our boats and had lunches and dinners in the open air restaurants. We ate at Murdock’s, Tapas and Tacos, and Ryan’s Irish Pizzeria (who knew such a thing existed!).

On Friday morning the rest of the fleet left for home while we headed off further south to continue our fall cruise.