Cocoa Village, Florida

                                                            

  

Opus V in her berth at Cocoa Village Marina

Cocoa Village is just across the Indian River to the west of Cocoa Beach. This marina is right on the river and at the foot of the bridge that crosses over to Cocoa Beach. Cocoa Village is a mini version of Coconut Grove. Right across the street from the marina is the main section of downtown--full of restaurants and bars and shops amid tree-lined streets. It's really quite quaint. Last year we had pizza with some friends that had followed us over from Ft Myers. Ryan's Pizza and Pub--very good. Yesterday, Diane and I tried one of the more upscale restaurants--Café Margaux-- FANTASTIC!

It's a French cuisine rest. with a Turkish chef. The décor is "Early Grandma's House"--but really quite nice. The service was excellent and the food even better. I had the escargot--best ever -- and the beef Wellington (an individual puff pastry) that was perfectly cooked and delish. Diane had smoked salmon as an appetizer (almost a meal--she took home half and had it for breakfast the next morning) and also had the Wellington.

But the highlight of the town is the S.F. Travis hardware store--allegedly the oldest hardware store in the U.S.

We spent almost an hour rummaging around in this hidden treasure. Suffice it to say, if they don't have it, it's not made. You wander from room to room, upstairs and downstairs and into adjoining buildings. They literally have everything--wrenches the size of small cars; wood burning stoves (not fireplaces--stoves); old time wash tubs; every imaginable piece of hardware--bins of nails, screws, bolts--standard and metric; boat hardware--blocks and tackle heavy enough to lift a boat; antique oil lamps and the globes and wicks to go with them; a paint and cleaning supply room larger than the standard hardware store; stuff I've never seen before and have no idea what it is. Plus--there were at least 8 friendly guys working there-one who interrupted his lunch to take us to an upstairs back room to locate oil absorbing cloths. This place really is an experience (if you like hardware stores--I must say even Diane was fascinated).

Took a road trip today to pick up a couple of replacement batteries--this boat uses 2 sets of 2 6 volt golf cart batteries. One bank had been very "ineffective" when we were anchored out the other night and I had it tested yesterday and confirmed that it was compromised--so off to the golf cart store in Titusville to pick up a couple of replacements. Let's hope this does the trick. (Although I have a deisel generator on board, big enough to run 2 A/C units, the water heater, the battery charger and the Jennaire grill on the fly deck, all at the same time, I try not to run it any more than necessary (kinda noisy)--thus it's important to have strong batteries you can rely on to run the refrigerator, the anchor light, a couple of cell phone chargers and a CPAP machine through the night and still be able to start the engines in the morning. 

Sooooo-we are enjoying, once again, our stay in Cocoa Village but looking forward to moving south after we get back from Houston next week.