Monday, November 19 – Daytona (Mile 836) – Titusville (Mile 878):

            Woke up to – let’s hear it – cloudy, gray, windy, and drizzly.  So in your best Gomer Pyle voice let’s say, “Well, surprise, surprise, surprise.”  Know how I know it was windy?  All the windmills on the surrounding sailboats whizzing around at the speed of light.  I do believe that if the State of Florida could harness all the sailboat windmills right now, they would have enough energy to light the entire state for at least a few hours.  And…there is no end in sight to this weather.  Florida…really…where…? 

            The mystery noise we heard in the middle of the night last night turned out to be one of our fenders rubbing against a piling.  Bob got up and adjusted the fender and lines and all was well again.  We had an easy escape from the dock this morning.  Once we untied the dock lines, it was a straight shot out to the Halifax River then into the Ponce de Leon Cut and on past the Ponce de Leon Inlet which was no problem at all.  It is chilly out here, but we are protected up on the flybridge as we had the whole area enclosed before we left home which turned out to be a great idea!  However, I am wearing a turtleneck, sweatshirt, heavy sweater, and a jacket plus a hat and gloves!  Bob is wearing a sweatshirt and SHORTS!  Once of us is crazy but I’m not sure which one, and if it’s me, well…there could be so many reasons!

            There is no one out here.  I think we are the only ones who decided to brave this stupid weather and move on.  This tells me that most of the traffic we saw yesterday was due to the weekend (well, of course, who wouldn’t want to be out here in a boat in such beautiful weather?), or most of the snowbirds decided to be smart and stay in a nice, cozy, warm marina till the weather changes for the better!

            We now pass New Smyrna Beach, which is supposed to have some neat sugar mill ruins to explore and a great little bakery.  Back in the old days, I think New Smyrna used to ship molasses south to make rum.  Hmmm….rum…not a bad idea right now! 

            While we were cruising through this area, I saw a Mommy and Daddy Pelican and their five little pelican toddlers.  Talk about cute!  Actually, pelicans don’t look like terribly happy birds to me.  They are always tucking their seemingly unwieldy bills into their breast, and they have this look in their eye that says, “bug off”.  They really don’t have a particularly graceful way of flying – and the way they dive bomb into the water to get a fish looks like it should be painful.  Although, they usually hit their mark.  We saw lots of dolphins as usual.  I really don’t know why the dolphins don’t eat the boat-munching shrimp around our boat.  Maybe their little sharp claws would get caught in the dolphins’ throat – who knows?  In this area, there must be a sign in the water every few feet that tells you to slow down and watch your wake, as this whole area is a protected manatee zone.  Well, we’re not positive, but we saw something that definitely didn’t look like a dolphin, so I’m hoping we can say we saw a manatee.  They are funny looking creatures.

            So just past New Smyrna Beach we head down the Indian River North.  The channel here runs down the side of this area and all toward the ocean side is full of island marshes.  And then we enter Mosquito Lagoon!  The Waterway Guide says that this lagoon is an open, shallow expanse of water and can only be explored by dinghy or shallow draft boat and has ideal conditions for mosquitos, and deer flies.  So what are we doing out here??!!  Well, at least I think it is too cold for mosquitos and they have fled for someplace nice like Florida.  Where is that again?

            Around this time we hear a radio communication between the Coast Guard and the cruise ship, Carnival Fantasy, about someone who had to be airlifted off the ship to a hospital.  Now I wouldn’t wish anything bad on anybody, but I know the average age of Carnival passengers and my imagination went wild.

            The Waterway Guide tells you to be alert about ½ way through the Mosquito Lagoon and if the weather is nice and visibility is good you can see the Space Shuttle Hangar at the Kennedy Space Center.  Well, I kept looking through the binoculars, but needless to say, the weather was awful, and visibility was limited.  (But I thought I maybe saw something…)  Also, in this area, the width of the Mosquito Lagoon must be at least over a mile across, yet there is no water except in the channel.  Don’t even think of straying out of the deep water, or you will be in “deep” (Ha Ha) trouble!  So you leave the Mosquito Lagoon by a sharp right hand turn into another very narrow channel bordered on both sides by rocks and then right away you run into a low bridge, which, fortunately, opens on demand.

            Now you are in the Indian River, and the wind is hitting us abeam, but the waves are not very big, so this passage is not as uncomfortable as it could be.  It is, however, very cold, and we were buffeted around enough so you had to be careful not to get pushed out of the channel.  We ran into some sailboats in this area, and they were having a great sail.  All though this area, there are bizarre little islands sticking up seemingly out of nowhere.  If it had been sunny, it would have been beautiful. 

            We are now in Titusville, and are heading to the Titusville City Marina for the night.  As there are no tides to worry about any more, the docks are all stationery, and we are assigned a real slip instead of tying up alongside a pier.  Bob backed the boat into the slip “purty as a picture”, and we settled in for the night.  I didn’t tell anyone this, but when we were supposed to cook the salmon out last night, we were too tired and just ate cereal.  But tonight the salmon was great, and it was accompanied by a sweet potato and a nice cold glass of pinot grigio. 

            Tomorrow, we head to our destination, Cocoa, and the Cocoa Village Marina.  Wow!  We have almost made it! We should be there around noon, and I’ll let you all know how it is – who knows maybe after awhile we’ll see some sun!