Jessica visited us at Daytona this morning. Her office is a short distance from the Halifax Harbor Marina where we were docked. We had coffee on the top deck which was lovely — the kind of morning temperatures we’ve been waiting for. After she departed, we took a cab to breakfast at a spot a dock worker told Will about. Ambiance 0, food, 8. Though, we will tease him about this selection forever, he is fortunate that last night’s dinner at The Blue Grotto right next to where we were moored was so bad (the first bad meal of the trip — to which all of our waistlines can attest). Our ride to New Smyrna was pleasantly slow with more boat traffic, more bridges, more condos and more houses. Definitely into civilization now. Lots of manatee zone signs and Cliff spotted the telltale bubbles of a submerging manatee off a seawall close to the ICW deep channel. Our destination is the Smyrna Yacht Club, a venerable organization with a Spanish hacienda style clubhouse just off the ICW. A friendly welcome and nice facility. Roger, Will and Ann hiked to and from the downtown area. The houses along the waterfront display a wide variety of architectural styles — arts & crafts with deep, shady porches, 1960’s modern featuring an eyebrow roof line and big single-paned windows, Key West style tin-roofs zig-zagging over multiple gables. Several had been converted into B&Bs. Our walk back down an interior street revealed lots of renovation opportunities — same style homes, but most badly in need of fixing up. One of our first stops downtown was a building called The Hub, an artists co-op that is in the midst of a fund-raising campaign. For “only” $500,000 you can have the building named for you! There were some outstanding artists represented, several of whom Roger had taken classes from. Further down the street was a recently opened olive oil and vinegar shop which was delightful, from the sampling opportunities to the knowledgeable owner. We helped ourselves to dribs of this and that and tried them with chunks of bread to determine which combos we liked best. I am sure our purchases “made her day.” I facetiously suggested we stay on board for a salad dinner using some of the purchases, knowing that the idea would be quickly shot down by my hungry cruise companions….which it was. Instead we dined (the appropriate word here) deliciously at the Smyrna Yacht Club and had a friendly server named Trinket (really). An early evening for us — Ann has caught a miserable cold and fortunately Roger brought along his anti-cold medicine chest.
