Post #51 Sittin ‘ on the Dock of the Bay for 6 Weeks (Part 3)

Friday, January 15, 2020

Much of the time we spend on the boat is pretty boring.  We do the same things you do at home—cook, clean, vacuum, wash our clothes, hire a diver to scrape any barnacles off the hull, replace the carbon brushes on the bow thruster, fix the water leak (the pipes run under our bed)—you know the drill.

But then there are other times when we go exploring.  Cocoa Village dates back to the late 1800’s when Flagler’s railroad brought carloads of tourists and settlers to the area and hauled Indian River citrus fruit back up north.  Although most of the architecture is Spanish-influenced, some of the oldest homes in the area reminded me of the cottages on Martha’s Vineyard (alright, except for the palm trees).

 

But Cocoa Beach, located 8 miles east on Merritt Island, is where the boogey-boarding, sun-bathing, and surfing action is! Ron Jon’s flagship store (all 52,000 square feet!) is the L.L. Bean of Cocoa Beach—open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I think that it must have been designed by one of Disney’s Magic Kingdom architects:

In the heyday of the space program in the 1960’s, Cocoa Beach was the east coast home of the NASA astronauts.  They lived in Cocoa while training at nearby Cape Canaveral, the other major attraction in the area. Some of the mid-century designed hotels (now condos) still line the beachfront, sporting names like the Apollo Inn, and the Saturn Hotel. We watched several SpaceX launches from the balcony of the marina but one evening Sarah, David and I climbed into my little Mini Cooper and bopped all over Merritt Island looking for an “up close and personal” view of the lift-off.  We felt like the guys who drive around like crazy trying to chase tornadoes in the movie Twister! But our efforts were rewarded—what a thrill to see the Falcon rocket send a Turkish communications satellite out into orbit.

I think sometimes the word “Florida” conjures up a vision of a concrete jungle of  strip malls, amusement parks, high-rise condos, endless 6-lane highways, and over-built housing developments.  But truly there is a surprising amount of land and waterways that have been protected from “economic progress.”  Many people don’t see these wilderness reserves because they are mostly accessible only by foot or by water—which works quite well to keep humans away so animals can live naturally.  Merritt Island is home to one such National Wildlife Refuge, side-by-side with the technological wonders of the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. 

Another of our adventures involved a 5-mile hike through protected lagoons, marshlands, saltwater estuaries, scrub habitat, and freshwater impoundment streams.  The 140,000 acre refuge is strategically located on the Atlantic Flyway, a major bird migration corridor.  We arrived in the late afternoon and saw large numbers of osprey, anhinga, heron, egret, ducks, wigeons and teals.  I’d highly recommend a visit if you have any interest in birding.

We were especially taken by the roseate spoonbills.  The first time we saw them in the air, we thought they were flamingoes! They are a gorgeous shade of pinky coral and have an enormous wingspan reaching up to 4 feet. Up close you can see their paddle-shaped bills and bright red eyes. Wading in shallow water, they sweep their bills back and forth like a spatula, scooping up the crustaceans and small fish that in turn contribute to their rose-colored feathers. (I did not take this photo.)

So we traipsed along the trail for four hours as the sun slowly set over the Indian River, sending golden rays over the marshes and lagoons.  It truly was lovely. 

But we couldn’t help but notice the old scat on the pathway.  At first we groused, :why don’t people pick up after their dogs?”  But a pattern began to emerge.  The scat was always dead center on the path and about the same distance apart.  We suspected that it might be something more worrisome than a duck.  But what?  Florida has two large cats—the Florida panther (or puma or cougar) and the bobcat. I’ve since learned that there are only 200 panthers left in the wild (mostly around Lake Okeechobee) but lots of bobcats widely distributed around swamps and hammock land (yup, just like the area we were walking through).  Let’s just say that we picked up the pace a bit as our imaginations ran wild and the sun dipped further in the west. We scurried back to the safety of the car.

Our final visit to the National Refuge was to Playalinda beach, close by the NASA launch pads. It was a cool, blustery day but there were folks out fishing on the deserted beach and a few children played in the surf. 

The pinnacle “safari” experience of our time in Cocoa has to be the second trip we took down the barge canal.  I don’t think I will ever tire of watching this truly “up close and personal” video: