Who Said New Smyrna Beach was Laid Back?

New Smyrna Beach is an Old Florida, laid back town. Unless your with our family. It was another wild weekend visiting the Thomases. Andy's dad taught this family how to be competitive at anything. I've joked that even Croquet and Bocci have become contact sports when they play. But this competitive spirit makes it fun when the family (and their friends) gets together. Injuries are something to expect, but I was surprised that almost everyone (10-12) walked off the football field with blood this past weekend. They played 2 games on two separate days. Both on the hard packed beach. Hitting the sand with knees, elbows, and backs, they all suffered from "road rash" burns. And this was an 'innocent' game of two-hand touch! Boys.

We did get some normal exercise into our routine. A couple runs, a bike ride, and an ocean swim. Our beach is so different from the beach up in NSB. First, the sand is hard and cars drive on the beach. This does make for an easier run on the sand since it is packed versus our soft, slanted beach. The other differences were obvious during our ocean swim. For one, the water is about 10 degrees colder! Yikes, I've gotten so used to the ocean being almost air-temperature it was a shock to walk into 72 degree water again (that's our temperature in Mar-Apr, not July!). I'm also used to being able to see the sand ripples, stingrays, and fish during my swim, but not in Smyrna - I could barely see my hand outstretched in front of me. This got me thinking...hhhmmmm, Smyrna is the shark-capitol of Florida, should I really be out here? I stopped periodically to make sure Andy and I didn't get too far apart. It was a rare swim for me to be that uncomfortable out in the ocean.

We also got some of the group out for a kayak. Or, should I say an attempt to paddle? This is pretty much what our group looked like during our kayak tour....bunched together, no paddling, more splashing than forward-motion, you know what I'm saying, right? There is a kayak trail in Cape Canaveral called Shipyard Island Canoe Trail. This site has a map of the canoe trail. I had hoped to find the northern entrance to the trail from JBs Fish Camp (which is where we rented kayaks and put in), but we never made it half the distance. Oh well, I'll just have to try to do the trail on another visit. But because we did goof around in the main waterways, we did get to see a number of dolphins.