Boom De Yada: Visiting family and friends in Florida for Christmas and New Years

Dec 6 we anchored in the Melbourne area just outside Grill Bar. Julie and I enjoyed a drink sitting on the waters edge waiting for Alan and Lily to join us...it was like I just saw them the other day. I won’t bore anyone with family visits but quickly cover some of the highlights of our stay in the Melbourne area.

The next day Alan and Lily came with us for the six mile trip further south where Alan arranged with a colleague (Larry and Lori) for BoomDeYada to moore for the next month. We went to lunch at Squid Lips (another fun bar & grill on the water) where we got to sit and have lunch with our feet on the sand. We called a few fish places and found Stone Crab Claws for $18/lb...we picked up over 8lbs...we cracked the hard claw shell with a hammer and the four of us feasted for dinner that night. Some of Alan’s friends came over that night to visit. Julie and I stayed the night.

Up early the next morning to go surf fishing with Andy Noel and his son (Andy was the broker we purchased BoomDeYada through). Using shrimp and sand fleas, we had little luck catching anything worth keeping. We needed to get back to the boat as we hadn’t yet resolved hooking up to electrical power. Since owning BoomDeYada, we have never been able to plug into a 110volt AC outlet without tripping the circuit...once again, we experiecnced the same results. Fortunately, Larry works for Florida Power & Light (equivalent to Ontario Hydro). It turned out that my 110V extension cord that I had wired together had the wires reversed...it worked well at home but with boat wiring safety systems it didn’t. A simple fix and BoomDeYada had all the conveniences of home again (without running the genie).

Julie holding one of Lily's pet turtles

We rented a car from Enterprise for the weekend - $9.95/day...we needed to buy groceries, etc. and Julie and I went to dinner at a local Cuban restaurant...not spicy food like we had thought. That night, Julie was very ill...up most of the night with her body processing food from both ends. It knocked her out for a few days. She called just to give the restaurant a heads up, that that we were going to sue them (well not really, but to advise them so they could check things out, as she didn't want anyone else to experience what she had gone through)...they called back later that afternoon and offered a free dinner after advising that all seemed aok on their end. Two nights later, I had the same thing...it was one nasty bug, I hadn’t even had a cold in the last 10 years. So...it was the flu, not food poisoning...we never did go for the free dinner.

The restaurant owner dressed up as Santa

Another day surf fishing, this time we caught some White fish and Sheepheads (good eating fish). I also reeled in a sting ray, caught a catfish with poisonous barbs (a few years ago one of those little pricks got me when I helped it get back in the water). It is surprising the amount of sealife that swims around our feet when swiming in the surf. Alan also organized with another friend to do some deep-sea fishing...we were up at 06:15 to meet up with the owner and his two sons, they stopped to throw a fish net in a local canal to catch some live bait. We loaded up the boat (center console with two 300hp engines) with the fishing gear and headed out the Port of Cape Canaveral. We stopped at almost every buoy (channel marker) to fish for more live bait. Then we headed out at high speed for 15 miles to a wreck. The seas were calm.

We fished the wreck for 20-30 minutes, then moved on to the next one and we did this several times. When fishing the wrecks, we would drop a line with live bait trying to get Grouper...when they hit the line, you don’t have much time before they take your line down under a rock for protection, so you have to start reeling in fast right away before he makes it to the bottom with your line...no Grouper were caught and we lost several leaders and tackle. Around 13:00 we started trolling for Kingfish; let out three lines...no luck. We saw a bout 20 boats fishing in one area in the distance...we went, we caught! We landed 7 Kingfish 3-4ft in length, 4 got away. A couple of times we had a shark following our lures. We packed it in and headed 25 miles back into port. By the time we cleaned up the boat and the professionals cleaned the fish, it was dark. That was a great day of fishing!!

One of seven Kingfish landed

The new Disney cruise ship leaving Port Canaveral

Cleaning of our catch

We spent a week during Christmas with my parents in Zephyrhills (between Tampa and Orlando). They sold their place last year after 20 years of being snowbirds but decided their health was good enough for one more season so they rented in the same community, still playing tennis, golf and baseball. We socialized with them and their friends and visited with some other cousins in Orlando. We actually have relatives living all over Florida: Orlando, Melbourne, Pensacola, Tampa, Naples, Jupiter, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Not only was it great to visit them but what a great help they have been. We've sure appreciated their generosity with helping us on our journey.

I had briefly visited Toronto for a couple days to attend a dear friends funeral...not much time to do anything else, but spend time with our three sons. Julie didn't come with me as she had to make a quick trip back home 10 days earlier. My arrival back to Orlando was 17:42; Julie and Alan were there to meet me and we drove the 1.5 hours back to Lily where the four of us brought in the New Years. The next day we were up at 08:00 for Alan and Lily to take us back to BoomDeYada as we needed to start moving again. Our son Ryan and his girlfriend Alyssa were meeting us in Fort Lauderdale on January 5th...140 miles south of Melbourne. We said good-bye to Alan and Lily, then to our hosts for the month and we shoved off down the ICW.