On the Road Again

4/15 – 4/17 - Even though we really enjoyed the MTOA Rendezvous, it was great to leave the marina and be on the road again. We are still traveling with Second Star and will, until we part company in a few days at Palm Coast where they now have a home. The weather today was cloudy and breezy and we even had a few squalls move through, but the rain didn’t amount to much. We initially were going to stop at Pine Island located just a few miles from Vero Beach, but we reached that anchorage pretty early in the day so we pressed on to Melbourne. By the time we got there we’d been traveling over 8 hours – a relatively long day for us. It was rather windy, but we were well protected and had a comfortable night.

Saturday morning we raised anchor and were on our way by 9:00. We made a side trip up the Canaveral Barge Canal where we bought diesel, got a pump out and had lunch at the Harbortown Marina. They have the cheapest diesel of any place in the vicinity. Even so, it was almost a dollar more today than it was in December when we passed through before. By the time we left the marina and got out of the canal the wind was gusting to 35 and the ride on the ICW was pretty choppy. We dropped anchor in Titusville where there were about 20-30 other boats. As was the case last night, we were pretty well protected and didn’t have much chop or wave action during the night.

On Sunday we experienced one of those days on the ICW where every boater was out and every one of them must have thought they were the only one out there. We were “waked” hard more times than we could count and hundreds of little boats were buzzing around like mosquitoes. Arugghhhhh …… boating in Florida on the weekend. By evening we were exhausted and happily pulled into our Daytona Beach anchorage for the night – southeast of the Memorial Bridge close to the shore in the “no wake” manatee zone. We’ve stayed here twice before and really gave it high marks. While it is right off the ICW, it is reasonably well protected and the “no wake” zone means that, at least, most of the boats slow down when they go through the area. One thing I might mention, is that we’ve seen hundreds of dolphins the past 3 days – as usual though, no good pictures. We even had some playing beside the boat tonight at the anchorage. The weather was cooler which meant we had great sleeping weather. We were happy.

Shortly after leaving the marina, we passed the Ft. Pierce Inlet

We saw lots of osprey on the channel markers



Passed a beautiful wooden sailing vessel



Going up the Canaveral Barge Canal we passed our friends,
Dick and Elle, on Summer Wind. They are officially
now on the "Great Loop"





A family with a child and two dogs were
waving, so we took a picture.



The shoreline along the canal is most interesting.  Very
thick vegetation.

Another shot of the shoreline

Since it was the weekend, there were lots of boats out.
This one appeared to be a little overloaded. 

That's the buildings at NASA you can see in the disance.

Birds are always hanging out at the bridges.  Here's 3 pelicans

... and a few more

The new bridge at Titusville has been completed,
but parts of the old one are still there.

Sunset at Titusville anchorage

The next day (Sunday) we passed by several spoil islands
with Roseate Spoonbill  nesting in the trees.  Unfortunately, we
couldn't get close enough for a picture, but we could
see them through the binoculars. Beautiful bright pink birds.



Looking back as we entered the Haulover Canal



Lots of fishing boats out today.  It was Sunday and the
weather was nice.



We passed by Rockhouse Creek which was loaded with
boats.  We stopped here last fall on our way down and
there was only one other boat.



Second Star and a gazillion other boats in front of us.



Peace, quiet and a full moon rising in the anchorage at Daytona