Nov 21 - 22 - Banana River

Finally - here are some pictures -- added some to the last posting too!

Nov 20 – Titusville – Eau Gaille (mile 914)
Mark and Brendan wanted to go exploring in the morning, so we had breakfast and were thinking about taking Rudder to shore when we heard Mark and Brendan coming back from shore. Apparently the causeway is owned by NASA and we weren’t really supposed to go to shore there. Oops. We left around 8:30 and had another uneventful day. Nice to not have things break for a day or two. We anchored in behind the Eau Gaille causeway around 1:30. Sheryl and Brian have friends that live near here, so they went to shore to check things out and to give them a call and they took Annie and Kristen with them. We went to shore shortly after them and there was a great park with a playground and tennis court. As we were going in the dolphins were corralling fish and doing all kinds of splashing around. There are also lots of birds – pelicans, egrets, ibis and wood storks. Were pretty sure there are manatees around as you can see them swimming out in the channel. The kids had a great time playing in the playground. Sheryl and Brian’s friends Brian and Linda came to meet us and they started shuttling us all to a restaurant for supper. There were 14 of us all together and it was a really fun time. Sheryl arranged for the waiters to sing Happy Birthday to Annie!
Nov 21-22 – Banana River
It’s Annie’s Birthday! In the morning we all went to the park. The guys walked up to the Discount Marine store; Erin and Geneva showed Annie and Kristen how to play tennis. We stayed there until about 11:00. Then we dinghied back out to the boats and moved across the Indian River and up the Banana River a little ways to the Telemar Marina. The Brian with a car was there to meet us and he began to shuttle us all to the zoo. Sheryl took the girls in the first trip, and Dave and I went in the second trip with Mark and Brendan. We had a great time at the zoo. One thing that was cool was the kayak trip. We paired up and filled up 4 kayaks, and then had a guided kayak tour around this island that had animals on it. That was pretty neat. The other thing that was really cool was feeding the lorries. We went into the aviary with all kinds of birds flying around. There were cockatoos, a koorkaburra and the lorries. The lorries look like some kind of small parrot, are mostly green but really colorful. You could buy lorry nectar and then the lorries would come and perch on your head, arms, or wherever they could find a spot. The birds were really excited and they would fight over the nectar. A couple of times a hawk flew over the aviary and the birds all got really scared and would all fly away. It was really neat and we stayed there quite a while. Around 4:30 we got a ride to walmart to try to find a birthday present for Annie. We had a list of quite a few things she wanted, but do you think we could find any of them at that Walmart today?? We got a giant birthday cookie and a card and then got a ride to Brian and Linda’s where they had made a wonderful turkey/thanksgiving/birthday dinner for all of us. We had a lovely evening. The kids swam in the pool and watched movies. All in all Annie had a great birthday even though she didn’t get any presents from us!
On Saturday we had planned to leave Melbourne ahead of Gotta Life and Sandpiper and go to Vero, but in the end we decided to stay here another day and get some chores done around the boat. The girls had a great day with the scooters and rip-stiks. They spent the entire day outside. In the afternoon Dave and I went for a walk to the grocery store. On the way we walked through a little park and saw three baby raccoons. They were really cute.