MELBOURNE, FL..................................

We had to drive through MELBOUNE, FL to get to Jacksonville after our short cruise-ship cruise and so here is the connection to the mailbox on the left. First there were the Indians living in Florida's coastal region. Then came some settlers who called the place "Indian River", then by some law the region was called "INDIAN RIVER COUNTY", how am I doing so far?......................... Well one of the settlers opened up a trading post, a mini WALMART. The guy's name was "Cornthwaite John Hector" and he became the first official postmaster for the area. He was known as 'C.J.Hector' for obvious reasons, and had spent most of his early life in MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA, before moving to remote Florida. He soon named the community of "Crane Creek" on the Indian River settlement in Florida "MELBOURNE"., supposedly for nostalgic reasons that we have all had to endure. So now you know where the name came from.......................Not only that but,

"The importance of the waterway as an avenue of commerce and communication is pointed out by a plaque in a small park overlooking the Indian River Lagoon. The plaque reads: "To honor Peter Wright, early settler. A black freedman, the legendary sailing mailman, (who) sailed regularly from Titusville to Malabar to deliver mail to riverside settlements."



So you see, there was a time when SNAIL MAIL was really "SAIL MAIL" or "PADDLE MAIL" or "ROW MAIL" or simply "NO MAIL"............................

And all of this in no way explains why we ended up in MELBOURNE, FL eating Chinese at the best buffet in the World. It just so happens that it is the best ever buffet in the World, and they have this wonderful mix of baby squid in seaweed. Worth getting from one Melbourne to the the other just to taste it.........................
The servers are WEINI and QINT LIN, charmingly Chinese and full of good humor.



And if you thought that on the cruise ship, the food, the gambling, the drinks, the dancing, the shows, the chocolate on the pillows and the cute towel animals are enough to " DRIVE YOU UP THE WALL", then they have one of those too. It is on the afterdeck and you can climb it to your hearts content......................

THE EIGHT-YEAR HONEYMOON CONTINUES................

Yes it looks like we are not done with sea-turtles just yet ............... As our Anniversary draws near, plans are laid for some more 'blue-water' adventures and another 4-day cruise-ship booking is made. This is the best-ever value for money, even if it is a 'sleep-eat-eat-eat-sleep-eat-eat-eat-sleep-eat-eat...........' cruise. There is plenty to be done, including our daily two-mile walk, in circles on the upper-upper deck. We departed on Sunday, Sept. 20th, from Cape Canaveral, from which many an astronaut has left at a somewhat greater speed. We waved good-bye to the Florida coastline and set sail for the BAHAMAS and some really blue-blue water. We have great faith in the crew of these cruise ships, despite the fact that they may, on occassions, put the flags upside down. This in nautical language means " WE ARE IN DISTRESS ". Then again, seeing some people after four days of solid eating, this could in fact, be true.



After a full night sailing across the Gulf Stream, we docked early in FREEPORT also known as LUCAYA HARBOR, on Grand Bahama Island, to some wonderful blue blue water and once on shore, found the sea-grapes well advanced and ready to pick and eat. This was done with relish, I mean....... enthusiasm......... Not having seen TV in months, we came face to face with CNN on board, and saw the graphic pictures of a dust storm to hit Sydney, Australia. My Daughter-in-law Jane, sent this picture of the Sydney Harbour bridge, taken in the middle of the day. AWESOME...........



It did not take us long to find a deserted beach and spend five solid hours in the water. One of our projects while in FREEPORT, was to visit the factory where the magnificent (at least to us) RICARDO MANGO RUM is produced. There is a limited production of this 'out-of-this-world' concoction, and it is only procurable in the Bahamas. As soon as we arrived, we were informed that the factory had been destroyed in a recent hurricane and the operation had been moved to NASSAU, the Capital of the Bahamas. Good 'Karma' quickly moved in, for NASSAU was to be our next destination.



Back on board, it is time to celebrate in style, fancy clothes, with lobster on the menu and desserts to die for. The MENU itself is as long as a sleepless night. I don't know how they do it. For the 2000 odd guests, there are 750 crew, who also eat, though not a lot, for we never saw a fat one, not even a chubby one. The cost of the 4-day cruise for the both of us together was under $500.00, so you do the maths. Then again we didn't drink or gamble. On our last cruise we can still hear the booming voice of one guy who kept yelling " How could I possibly have spent 1500 dollars on drinks in four days !"................
By the time we are satiated beyond description, the Cruise-liner "SENSATION" is well on its way to NASSAU and on returning to our cabin, we find the bed turned down and chocolate mints on the pillows............... need we say more.....



Busy, bustling NASSAU, and onto the traditional 'straw' market that has been in existence since the Pirate days. This is where the 'Banana' boats would unload their cargo and where the 'Calypso' songs were born. Colourful, vibrant and loud. Very loud. A perfect place for Miss 'CLEO' and a thousand other Miss Cleos. In the centre of town we discover the Bahamian police directing traffic. This is necessary because the lights on the traffic lights don't really change, then again they may be waiting for a replacement green cover and perhaps new bulbs for the others. Tourist flock here just for these quaint things..........



One of the other great things about NASSAU is that there is a special shop that stocks "SPEEDOS". The only place we have ever found, and while I am not to appear actually wearing speedos on this blog (as requested and agreed to), I can certainly show you where I got them......................... We did have a lifeboat drill very early on, while no-one had eaten anything or hit the bars. At that time it was still doable............................. getting into a lifeboat, I mean.



Now these next pics are priceless................ After a crazy taxi ride, in which the driver managed to down two bottles of beer and run one red light (and this one actually worked), we escaped from him and fled into the rum distillery security gate. I had the video camera on, to record the drinking and the speed at the same time, in case we crashed and lived to tell about it........ Now, more sober than I have ever been in my life, and more shaken, we met the delightful Pattina Cartwright, who gave us the complete tour of the facility. And I should tell you that, after a production run of RICARDO'S MANGO RUM has been bottled, the building has to be 'fully aired' with large fans, so that the odour doesn't contaminate other flavours to be bottled. I guess a seasoned drinker might not know the trouble these people go to.................... You can do some double-clicking on these pics, though I doubt you'll get the magnificent flavour of the 'Mango'. It is just AWESOME to hold and feel 2000 gallons of Ricardo's Mango Rum, so close yet so far. The closest I came to it, was to hold a roll of the labels. Just the thought of it was enough to get a grip on myself.........................and imagine if I was a serious drinker instead of a part-time 'wannabee' or a 'mightabee'.

Safely back on board the "SENSATION", with 4 bottles of RMR dutifully handed in to Customs for safe-keeping, we continued with swimming, reading and deck-strolling on our way back to Florida and Cape Canaveral, with blue-blue water, speedos and Mango rum now all ticked off our list................



Needless to say this on-going honeymoon is continueing. We are truly lucky and very blessed. Now while it was not part of the overall plan, I did get pulled in to the " HAIRY CHEST COMPETITION". Pulled in was more like "dragged-in". The person responsible was the 'Activities Manager', a fellow Australian, to whom I had been talking, one of four Australian crew members on the ship. Thank God, I was eliminated at the first round by public acclaim. Not enough 'hair-on-chest'............................. Some others on the other hand, would make the Georgia carpet weavers at Dalton do a double-take. That's from the front, not counting what's on the back. They sleep without a blanket........... don't need one.



A Delightful trip away from Florida's heat, and in air-conditioned comfort. Great to be spoilt rotten and waited on hand and foot. Great to get back to our own cruise ship and to start on the engine adjustments and repairs. Things still to be done before we set sail for the Caribbean on "ARITA". Thank goodness our engine is just a simple 85 HP Perkins 4-236 diesel engine, and not one of those below, with what looks like giant turbo-chargers. Thank goodness our propellor shaft is only an inch and a half and not this humungously long propellor shaft shown below. Photos compliments of the Italian ship's Engineer Mr. Roberto Genovese, who took the photos for us.



And speaking of ENGINEERING, we saw this dredger at work in NASSAU harbour. The rotating cutter-head (that pointy bit with the serrated teeth shown below on the left), is huge and when dropped down to the bottom, grinds away at the cemented ocean floor, while the giant pumps then carry away the rubble to well over three miles in a submerged pipeline. Part of the pipeline is shown above water on the right. Do a double-click on the pic if you are into this sort of thing. The waste material then re-surfaces on the other side of the harbour to make a section of re-claimed land which in time will probably become the grounds for a new hotel. The pipeline that carries this slurry was at least three feet in diameter. The whole set-up was probably designed by a frustated dentist turned engineer.......... and instead of being strapped in the chair the big black pylons on the stern are driven into the ocean floor to hold the dredger in place. The pipeline is clamped together in sections and when the cruise ships leave the harbour they pass over the pipe-line. Cutting and pumping at the same time is an art and when the pipe breaks and comes adrift, and hell breaks loose, then the engineers wish they were just dentists going home at the end of the day.......................

HAVE STOMACH......MUST WALK

We are now into this daily routine of long walks in new 'burbs' and finding new sights to behold like this glorious mailbox. Walking is good..... right? This two or more, mile walk is really much longer because we stop so often to check things out, like house designs, trees and shrubs, all the things you normally drive past and never really see. The beach walks are the most interesting and it still takes some getting used to, for here in Florida, the whole of the broad Atlantic Ocean washes ashore, sometimes with no more than a ripple on the sand and then again with a hurricane's push, the surge can be phenomenal and devastating with a tidal surge some twenty feet above normal.

We have finally completed our list of repairs resulting from the lightning strike. A very expensive exercise which could well have been offset by our insurance cover. The fact that much of the instrumentation that was "fried" was more than 10 years old, would have meant that the insurer would consider only the 'depreciated value' of the items. They do that....... you know. Thus, instead of only a marginal refund, it was better to bite the bullet ourselves, pay for it all, replace with NEW and save ourselves the deductable. So what you see below on the cockpit instrument panel is, from left to right, a new wind indicator unit,(the new whirly-bird on top of the mast is shown in the photo on the right), the new VHF radio, the new chartplotter, the new depth sounder, the new auto-pilot control unit. Oh.......and on top of the mast is the replacement navigation/strobe/anchor light combo thing that retails for $US 550.00. There are people who still persist in saying that sailing is much cheaper because the wind is free..................... Down below is a new stereo unit, new alternators, three new bulldozer-type batteries and two new depth sounder units and one new VHF radio unit. Whenever we anchor we now dangle this piece of chain over the side attached to the rigging. People look at it and you can see that look on their faces................. "Why do they do that?".........



Early one morning when we hit a new beach, we were sure that the "ALIENS" had landed. From a distance the spacecraft was surreal.

Cautiously we approached in the morning light, only to discover that the structure had a 'lifesaver' in it, reading a comic book. Personally, I wanted the "Queen of Florida" to get up there to do that Pamela Anderson 'BAYWATCH' thing, but she was worried the lifesaver might not understand if she posed, faced the Sun and breathed in ..............(you know what I mean). Laurie also said she would need a full-length red bathing suit, which I said is just too bad............................. He might still not understand.



Vero Beach, Florida and its "furry" trees. (As my grandson Zac, calls them)

Never can get enough of them, not even the stands of bamboo. Do a double-click on the Spanish moss-covered oak trees above and see the range of ferns and orchids. We also found a place that had these sculptures of more historical "Spanish" times. A sort of "La plaza del Conquistadores". Sword in one hand, Scriptures in the other and strings of rosary beads to tie it all up. Not that today's conflicts are any different, after all, the so-called PEACE-KEEPING forces use tanks and guns................to keep the peace, right? SPITE versus MIGHT versus RIGHT versus NIGHT and in the darkness, so we stumble on.................... All conflicts at some point are resolved with just plain dialogue. 90 miles South-East of Florida is Cuba that is open to the citizens of every country in the World with one exception. How sad is that, and all because somebody declared "War" on the United States in the last generation, without ever firing a single bullet.

Talk about burying your head in the sand,................. well, that's exactly what these blue land crabs do. We still haven't been able to get a photo of them. The same goes for the little 'straight out of the egg-shell' sea-turtles. All that we have found are the flipper marks in the sand. They go in circles until the GPS 'kicks in' and then they head for the Ocean. Good luck.... buddies, hope you make it!................... and come back and see us.