New Smyrna Beach (NSB)

We arrived at NSB May 16th, our plan was to stay for a night, here we are well over a month later.  As you know we decided to put the boat 🚢 on the market. What a great place to have chosen to stay awhile.  We have really enjoyed out time here at New Smyrna Beach City Marina.  The staff has been amazing and it is such a great location.

The location of the marina is perfectly situated right near the historic district, but also within a bike 🚲 ride to the beach ⛱ side.  We have made numerous trips to the beach side, both by vehicle and by scooter.  We definitely travel by scooter 🛵 on weekends due to the traffic and parking.

We have immersed ourselves into the local area.  There is a farmer's market every Saturday from 7 until noonish. We have supported the locals by purchasing bread 🍞, cheeses, and vegetables 🍅🌽🥒🥦 on a weekly basis. 

There are several restaurants / bars within walking distance to the marina.  We find ourselves always back at Corkscrew Bar and Grille, it's right on Canal St with a happy hour from 11:30 to 7:00, with $5 margaritas all day.  The food is pretty good also. We have tried the Wedge, House, and Designer Street salads, the All American and Corkscrew  Burgers 🍔, Stuffed Meatloaf sandwich, and Skillet Mac & Cheese.

A great find is The Garlic 🧄, OMG!  Thank goodness The Garlic is on the beachside otherwise I would be huge. Their dinner consists of bread 🍞 with roasted garlic (if you have not had roasted garlic you must try, first introduced to me by my sister in law Wendy in Italy), salad and an entree. Rob's entree was the lasagna special, made with filet mignon and seven layers of cheese.  I had the chicken parmigiano with linguine.  Our entrees provided two leftover meals. The layout is very interesting and unique, they even have reading glasses attached to the lights.

We liked The Garlic 🧄 so much we went back. I had the Bocce Ball, their homemade meatball, the size of a softball, over linguine. Rob tried their Cioppino. Both were delicious. Our last visit, was Rob's birthday dinner, we had mussels and osso bucco with garlic mashed potatoes 🥔. 

Merk's Bar and Grill, the local sports bar, another great find.  We ordered wings, you can mix and match any of the sauces. They claim their Frankenstein sauce is world 🌎 famous. You would think with that name the sauce would be extremely spicy, it is not, combination mild spice / barbecue. So our order was 1/2 hot 🔥🥵 and 1/2 Frankenstein. The wings were very saucy and delicious 😋.  I would have preferred a crisper skin.  We also tried the fish 🐟 and chips 🍟. The fish had a great crunch and was seasoned perfectly.

Prima pizzeria is a gem. We went in for lunch, they had a few tables outside (it was too hot to sit outside), a few tables inside and a counter. We sat at the counter and watched them make our food.  We tried the Italian and meatball sandwiches.  Rob told the waitress it was the best Italian cold cut he has ever had.  😋 😋

The Golden Biscuit was recommended by a boat neighbor for breakfast.  It was not spectacular, it was okay.  I had eggs benedict with home fries, Rob had biscuits and gravy with eggs 🥚🥚.

Flagler Tavern is right on Flagler, hence the name, so another great place to people watch.  We tried the Tavern Au Jus and Greek Lamb Burger 🍔. 

The Breakers is beachfront and they are famous for their burgers.  Rob tried the Beach Burger 🍔,  and I tried the cheeseburger 🍔.   Both were just a classic burger with lettuce, tomato and onion, but they were delicious and the fries were just as good. 

These are a few of the places, we wanted to try but did not get a chance (Riverpark Terrace, The General Public House, River Deck,  Norwood's, Third Wave, and AA Garden Fusion). Hopefully, on our next trip.

One of our favorite spots to people watch is on the beach ⛱ side at the Ocean Breeze Tiki Bar, there are chairs set up right on the corner of Flagler Ave and  Buenos Aires St. for patrons. Vehicles are allowed to drive on the beach here, this area is one of the entrances to access the beach along with a parking lot. Everyone drives past or walks🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️off from the beach on this corner.  It is just as entertaining watching the vehicles as the people.

We also took long walks on the beach before sitting down at our favorite spot.

Beach access

We traveled to Orlando, spent an afternoon at Disney's Springs checking out the shops. We met Bob and Christine at Texas de Brazil for dinner. Their salad bar is amazing.  We spent the night at the Hyatt and went to Universal's CityWalk the next day. We had a Bento box for lunch at the Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar.  Before leaving, we had to try the chocolate cherry mule at The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium.

Bento box (Sushi, Burger, sweet potato fries,
Thai cucumbers, and edamame)

Chocolate cherry mule

We drove to Melbourne to meet Brenda and Florian for lunch. They were visiting Zach and Brianna for the weekend and we met in the middle.  We had a fun afternoon as we always do.

On the first Saturday of the month the Canal Street Historic District has a Sip and Stroll.  You can sample craft beers and unique wines from participating restaurants from 1pm to 6pm. Cost is $25 and you get a souvenir glass.  On the last Saturday of the month there is a Wine Walk on Flagler Avenue. 

The second Saturday is the Classic Car Show. Canal Street is completely closed to through traffic and classic cars are lined up on both sides of the street. Rob has seen a few he would love to own.

Talk about people watching! 

We drove to Flagler beach, which is about 45 minutes from the marina, so we could check out the orange sand. Apparently, the color comes from coquina, a soft rock made of ancient marine reefs and limestone that was used to build Castilla San Marco located in St. Augustine.   According to our Toyota salesperson it is her favorite beach. We like NSB Beach better.  

We checked out Canaveral National Seashore, veterans can enter free of charge. We took a hiking trail where a snake🐍 slithered right in front of me.  There is one section of the park where the Beach is clothing optional. All I can say is what happens on the seashore stays on the seashore. 🙈 🙈

No words needed

Ha! No pictures

We visited an RV dealership and toured three towable RV's. The Wolf Pup was way too small.  The Grey Wolf was larger with a walk around queen bed. The last one we looked at was the Shadow Cruiser, this one was much nicer, had a king size bed and recliners.  Of course, we would need a bigger vehicle to tow the Shadow Cruiser. I've decided I'm just not ready to go from a boat to an RV.

Rob bought and installed foot boards on the 4 Runner. Really, they are short people steps. They definitely make it easier for me to get in and out of the vehicle. 

We ventured to Cassadaga, FL for a few hours.  Cassadaga is home to psychics, mediums, and healers.  It was founded in 1894 by spiritualist George P. Colby and is known as the psychic 🔮 capitol of the world 🌎.  We did not have a reading or ask about our aura, but we did walk through Horshoe Park and the Fairy Trail. We poked our heads into  the Cassadaga Hotel, supposedly haunted, with friendly spirits.  Before leaving, we drove around Lake Helen, not that spectacular. 

Trinkets all over the trail

We drove to Mount Dora, a quaint little town in Central Florida.  We saw one of only three fresh water lighthouses. There was the Palm 🌴 Island Boardwalk that extends along the shoreline of Lake Dora.  While walking the boardwalk we seen our first alligator. We decided to try some appetizers at The Olive 🫒 Branch, we ordered Mussels Di Napoli (blanco) and the Mediterranean Meze (Sliced gyro, spinach pie, tomato, olives and cucumbers served with delicious tzatziki/yogurt sauce).

⚠️⚠️ Alligators and snakes

Our first alligator!

NSB could be a contender for a dirt dwelling in the future 🤔.  We went and seen a three bedroom condo, around the corner from the marina.  A little further to walk to the historic district, but, still a great location.  The condo was huge, I'm talking mansion size, to us anyway. They are in the process of building additional units and we did not fall in love with the place. 

This will be my future mode of transportation 

We had to get a storage unit in order to declutter the boat 🚢.  It is amazing how much stuff we had on the boat. Part of decluttering included donating all of our unopened food to a local church and we had a good amount. The ladies at the church were so excited to receive the food, one said it's like we went grocery shopping.

Once we posted the for sale sign we had three showings.  The first was an older couple, they had previously owned an Albin almost exactly like ours.  He was very interested, but she had trouble getting on and around the boat 🚢.  The second couple, we could just tell before they even got on the boat, we were wasting our time.  They have been looking for a boat for well over a year.  The third couple, liked what they saw 👀, but they had an appointment to see another boat in Fort Pierce.  

Well, the third couple decided they were interested in purchasing KaWhy Knot 🪢.  We took them out for a sea trial and went over the entire boat with them. 

Our last cruise!

This is our last blog from KaWhy Knot.  We are officially homeless!

Stay tuned for adventures from our land yacht.