Eau Galle, Melbourne

In the morning we decide to go ashore to Cocoa Beach, mainly because of our friend Chrisy's recommendations. Because of all the derelict boats I was tempted to pass it up. Well, Chrisy was right. Nice little town and shops. Beautiful water front park. The world's coolest hardware store.

Cool Hardware Store, place is huge, two floors and more

 Around noontime we pull up the anchor and a couple hours later we are at Eau Galle, north of Melbourne. Our destination is dinner at Squid Lips, a Beach Bar/ Restaurant that we happened upon on our last trip south. We then anchored behind the bridge causeway to get out of waves from the south wind, which by luck was in front of Squid Lips. Good food and live music.

This time with the north wind, we decide to get a dock space at Eau Galle Yacht Basin on the Eau Galle River. A buck a foot, what a deal. Very protected basin, a little shallow, but no big deal if you pay attention, which many boaters apparently don't do if you were to believe the comments on Active Captain. Nice little marina, lots of live aboard locals, nothing fancy, but more than adequate. Excellent price to performance ratio, my personal metric. With a quick view of Google Earth I know exactly where to tie up. 

 

Guess which tie-up is  Mañana ?

A friend of ours, daughter, Jessica, lives in Melbourne. After texting back and forth we arrange to take her to dinner at Squid Lips after she gets out of work. After we finish I reach for my wallet in my back pocket and all I come up with is my flashlight. To quote that great republican, Texas governor, Rick Perry; “Oops”. Jessica paid the bill. The good news was Jessica came back to the boat with us, so I could posthumously pay her for our dinners, and we got to visit with her for another hour.