Vero, Titusville, & Daytona Beach

     I have never been the biggest fan of Florida. I imagine that it was incredibly beautiful a hundred years ago, but now that it's plastered with asphalt and condos it doesn't appeal to me as a pleasant place to live. Returning to Florida after a stay in the very laid-back, low-key Bahamas has been harsh. Even though these places are only separated by a narrow band of ocean, they're worlds apart.

     In the Bahamas you say hi. When you pass anyone on the street they greet you with a cheery "Hello, how are you today?" and you often end up having full out conversations across the street with locals. If you need to go somewhere far away, just stick your thumb out and you'll catch a ride from the first person who drives by. Smalltalk isn't just a brief ordeal; we once ended up chatting and laughing with one cashier for about a half hour after purchasing a bag of groceries from her. You never have lock your boat and I was always allowed to go for walks around town by myself. The fear of strangers that America had instilled in me was erased in the Bahamas.

     Coming ashore in America was kind of happy but also a rude awakening from my happy Bahamian state of mind. I walked into Publix and experienced a major sensory overload. All of the food stores in the Bahamas could have fit inside of the Publix in Fort Pierce. The food in the Bahamas is twice as expensive as it is here so my mother and I had an absolute field day stocking up on things like Wheat Thins and chips that had been prohibitively expensive for the past four months. We're eating well on White Seal now!

    We left Vero Beach on Thursday and made an impressive 73.5 miles up to Titusville for the night. We anchored out and went in to the marina to catch up with friends and an Irish family of five that we had met around Thanksgiving. We ordered pizza and chowed down. I felt disgustingly American sitting there with my soda and pizza in front of the TV. It was scrumptious.

     Yesterday we headed up to Daytona Beach. My second cousins were vacationing in the area so my dad decided that we could pay for a marina for the night. Our marina was wicked nice and I managed to shower off before going out to dinner with my great aunt, second cousins, and their parents. (Not really sure how to refer to them, but the dad is my dad's cousin. Does that make him my second cousin once removed...? I'm clueless.) The two girls were seniors in high school and identical twins. And man, they were REALLY identical. If they had been wearing the same outfit, which thankfully the weren't, I would have been completely incapable of remembering who was who. They were very nice and it was cool to get to know them for an evening.

    This morning we're motoring up to St. Augustine, if the tides will allow us to go that far. St. Augustine was my favorite place in Florida last time we went through, so I'm excited. There's a great used book store that I really want to stop at, as well as a little cafe with the world's most heavenly cinnamon buns. 

     If we continue to make good time up the coast, we might be home around June 1st. No promises or anything because boats and plans don't mix at all. But tentatively, possibly, maybe, we could PERHAPS get back around then. I have a job lined up at the Basin Harbor Club as a hostess, which I am quite excited about. I've gotten to talk to a bunch of friends since coming back to the States so I'm thinking a lot more about home. It will be sad to give up the boat life, but hey- I've got another full month. May as well live it up!

     Since I have good Internet now, here are some pictures from the Bahamas. They aren't particularly recent but I thought I'd include some that show the people and buildings that make the country so special and unique.

Water spouts on the horizon. When we were sailing to the States earlier this week,
we had to stay out of the way of these bad boys.

Local kids at Green Turtle parade around town practicing Junkanoo music.

Roberta's Faith Grocery store in Green Turtle Cay. Little smaller than an American Stop & Shop, eh?

I thought that this tailor's shop in Bimini was absolutely adorable.

My mother at the helm. This was taken as we crossed the Tropic of Cancer
on the way to Salt Pond, Long Island.

There are many abandoned homes taken over by nature on Cat Island.