New Smyrna Beach Florida (Port #69) ; Apr 8-9

Apr 8 – Sun
We traveled from Cocoa Village Florida to New Smyrna Beach Florida on Sunday.
It was a 51 mile ride on an overcast day that started very calm & got very windy.
We departed Cocoa at 7:30am & arrived in New Smyrna Beach City Marina about 2pm. It is a quant little marina with very nice friendly folks.

New Smyrna/New Smyrna Beach is a small city of about 25,000 located between Cocoa Beach & Daytona Beach Florida. Some historians believe New Smyrna is the original St. Augustine, the Spanish-colonized town in Northeast Florida known as the nation‘s oldest city.
Right across the street from the marina, we saw a large rock structure. My attempts to google the history found the following; The rock structure was credited to have been built by a Scottish physician named Andrew Turnbull. Dr Turnbull colonized the area for England in 1768. He came to Florida by ship, bringing with him nearly 1,500 Greeks, Corsicans, Italians and Minorcans in hopes of establishing a new colony. The general consensus is that the Turnbull Ruins are the remnants of his abandoned mansion, but some local historians suggest the coquina foundation may have been a colonial church, a site for constructing ships, or the original Castillo de San Marcos.


Apr 9 – Monday
We started Monday with a walk in downtown New Smyrna on Canal Street. It had a few bars, a few nice looking restaurants, clothes shops, hair salons, and normal every day business shops. The nicest looking places for dinner looked to be Yellow Dogs & The Corkscrew Bar & Grill ($5 Margareta’s on Mondays).

After walking the main city of New Smyrna, we took an Uber across the bridge to New Smyrna Beach. Every Uber ride involves making new friends, as all of our previous guests can attest to (Spraggs , do you remember Norm ?). So on this Uber ride we met Gregory. We found out that Gregory drives Uber in his spare time, but also caddies for senior PGA tour player Scott Hoch.

Once across the bridge, we found out that New Smyrna Beach is where all the action is. There were numerous restaurants & pubs on the main drag.

There were also many hidden places down mid-street corridors and side-streets.

We had lunch at a place called Breakers on the Atlantic Ocean.
Not the nicest looking outside or inside, but a great view from any seat in the place.

While at lunch we noticed that we are starting to get to a different kind of beach, more typical of Daytona with hard packed sand, where cars/trucks are allowed on the beach. It works out great for the handicapped. We observed two older women who had a special support van & a big balloon wheel chair enjoying the beach right up at the water (not shown in this photo).

After lunch we did some more walking and looked in/at all the clothes shops, gift shops, coffee shops, & bed/breakfast joints.

The town also appeared to be very into Shuffleboard !
The photo shows only 65% of the courts (8 courts of 12 shown).

At the end of our walk from the beach back towards the city, just before the ICW bridge, we found a place called The Grill at Riverview. We stopped in to have a drink and watch the boats go under the draw bridge. We later went back for dinner with Looper pals Tim & Patti from Craic. The Grill was very classy inside, great views on the outside deck, and awesome food (I had a lemon butter trout, yummie).

Mar 10 – Tue
Tuesday was supposed to be moving day, but we had monsoon rains all over northeast Florida, so we extended our stay by 1 day in New Smyrna and delayed our trip to Palm Cost Florida.
Photos below show ; Radar map of NE Florida & Beautiful Snow Photo in Auburn Hills Michigan from brother Kenny, both on the morning of April 10th.

Florida Radar Map-Apr10

Auburn Hills Michigan-Apr10

Since we had a 1-day weather hold-over, we were able to go to dinner at a place we almost forgot about. One of our blog readers recommended a place called The Garlic, about 2 miles from the marina. Whoever you are, thanks for the tip, please respond with a comment to identify yourself.

The Garlic Restaurant was awesome.
The Garlic is an open air environment set in a garden/jungle type décor. There was also an attached bar called The Blue Room. There were 2 different entertainment groups ; the band in the main restaurant was a 3 piece group playing jazz complete with saxophone, the 2nd group in The Blue Room had a singer and keyboard and played Sade type easy listening music.

The meal was as good as the settings.
I had the Veal Oscar (thinly sliced pan seared veal topped with crabmeat, poached asparagus, and béarnaise sauce).
Nellie had the 4 cheese Ravioli Bolognaise.
They also served every meal with a hunk of bread and a very large garlic clove. The clove comes whole and the waitress mashes/smashes it down to a wonderful bread dip.

Next Stops ;
> Only 1 day in Palm Coast Florida, a 43 mile ride north, port #70.
> Then St Augustine on Thursday.