Palm Bay, Florida

Rainie & Tom drove us to Orlando to meet up with our North Dakotan friends Kathy & Milt who live in Palm Bay, about an hour south of the Kennedy Space Centre and 3 hrs north of Miami. They spend 6 months in Florida during the winter, then head back to North Dakota for the summer. Their house is very comfortable, and they have a large shell collection they have accumulated from their trips to the beach. They showed me some dried pods that are locally called 'Mermaid Purses' and they are in fact Shark eggs.  Apparently 40% of sharks lay eggs and the others deliver baby sharks! Did you know that? I sure didn't!

We have had an enjoyable 3 days with them, and have done some things we had never done before - they have a trikke 3CV which takes a bit of practice to keep it going in a headwind. They also taught us to play dominoes which is nothing like I imagined it would be! Each game took us 4 hrs, and we played 2 nights in a row - we have now bought our own set to take home!

We spent a few relaxing hours at their local beach - the fisherman there were hauling in whiting just off the beach - seem to be a bigger species than our Australian ones.

Needing a hand on the trikke during headwind!

Dried Shark eggs

Original Shark Egg

Milt, Kathy & Murray heading to the beach

Murray in the zone...

Buckets of whiting all along the beach

First game of Dominoes

Our Ship - Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas

This morning Kathy & Milt drove us to Port Canaveral where we met our friends Dick, Jan & Nicole for lunch in a nearby cafe. We saw our Royal Caribbean ship 'Freedom of the Seas' as we drove past. After lunch we boarded and are now waiting to sail in an hour. After that our internet will be off for a week, so sorry about the emails and games that will go unanswered until Monday 7th May. Back online then...