Wednesday, May 6 — We arrived to entrance of the St. John’s River as the sun was coming up, so we had good visibility for entering (marked by purple dot).
A big tanker also arrived at the same time we did, so we changed course to be behind him. The ride along the river was nice — it was wide and calm. There wasn’t much traffic. We passed another tanker and a couple of tugs on their way out.
The river meandered east and then turned south, where it widened out even more. We passed a small commercial port.
Monday, May 4, 2026 continued… As we left Kennedy Space Center, we discussed a dinner plan. We’d liked the food at Rising Tide so much that we decided to go back again tonight. It was another great meal, and with the happy hour specials, it was great value for the money. They had some really yummy mocktails, too.
Eric and Christi wanted to take advantage of the car to do more sightseeing, but Keith wanted to go back to Kosmos and talk to his friends online. Eric and Christi dropped Keith off, then took a drive south to Cocoa Beach to go to the famous pier.
Sunday, May 3 — This morning, Eric scoped out the Yacht Club’s amenities, which were very nice.
However, it was a fairly long walk from club house to the end of the dock, where Kosmos was berthed. No, that wasn’t a building in the distance, it was a cruise ship.
On his way back, he met the owners of a Nordhavn 57 that was on our dock. He went aboard their boat and talked to them for several hours. Christi joined them for an hour.
As we feared, the ICW was busy on a Friday afternoon. Lots of speed boats zoomed by and several tiny boats came terrifyingly close to us, but now we’re jaded and don’t freak out when the boats get close like we used to. We were pleased to report that the ride to the Lake Worth inlet was uneventful.
Continued… In the April 12 post, we’d also on the mentioned we having the gaskets in three portholes and in the hatch for the chain locker replaced.
And we’d also mentioned that the last three original through hulls were also being replaced.
There were quite a few more things done in the yard that we haven’t mentioned before:
They replaced the hose from the main engine to the water heater. It was a two person job, required a lot of boat yoga, and was kind of messy. Eric was glad that project was done; he was worried about a getting a leak in the hose. They said the old hose was definitely ready to be changed. They replaced it with a much stronger hose than was there before.
The work that Eric was most excited about was that they connected the inverter to the air conditioning circuit and added a new switch. With this upgrade we can run one aircon unit at anytime with a simple switch at the aircon panel — this means we can run AC in the pilot house while at sea without having to turn the generator on. Or, when at anchor, we can run the AC downstairs for a few minutes before bed to make it more easier to fall asleep without having to run the generator and all the units. Since we find it difficult to function when it is hot and humid, this will be a major improvement to quality of life.
