Tuesday, November 20 – Titusville (Still):

            Well, Glory Hallelujah!  Woke up to sunshine, brilliant, glorious sunshine – but there was a catch, the wind was blowing so hard, all the boats in this marina were rocking and rolling and bucking in their slips – including ours (well, Bob insists that our boat was just gently rolling around).  If the boats could have all undone themselves, they would all have galloped out to sea.  Oh well, I guess you can’t have everything.  The only problem was that it was blowing so hard, we had second thoughts about leaving and going on to Cocoa.  We listened to the weather, Bob talked to the dock guys at the office, then he called Cocoa and the dockmaster there said we should stay right where we were as it was blowing so hard there, he thought it would be difficult to get into the slip, and it was fine with them if we didn’t arrive until tomorrow.  So that’s what we did – stayed right here again.

            Actually, this worked out well, because for some unknown reason I didn’t sleep a wink last night, and I had zero energy all day.  I don’t think I would have wanted to wrestle lines and fenders trying to get the boat settled into another slip in strong winds, even if it did mean finally getting to our “final” destination.  So we pretended we were slugs all day, and I basically stayed on the couch and we read or played cards or puzzles – it was a true “lay day.” 

            Over the past few marina stays, we seem to have been near railroad tracks with trains running mostly in the middle of the night.  Far off soft train whistles have a soothing, almost romantic sound, and I look forward to listening to them and imagining where they are going, what are they carrying, why does an engineer want to drive a train in the middle of the night, and are there still “hobos” who travel the rails?  My imagination just runs wild.  There is a train that runs right next to this marina also – we had to pass under the railroad bridge (which is always open unless there is a train coming) yesterday on our way here to Titusville.  However, this train is so loud because it is so close - it announces its arrival long before it actually gets here with several blasts of the faraway train whistle.  For the longest time, it seems as though it gets louder and louder and then subsides as if it has changed its mind about the route it wants to take.  But eventually, after a few minutes, the train does make its appointed pass in front of the marina with engines roaring, and the screech of steel wheels against steel track.  These trains seem very long, with lots of cars which are really containers on flat beds stacked one on top of another.  So for several minutes you are aware of this behemoth roaring by until finally the last car makes a gentle sleepy whisper fading into the distance.  I listened to this several times last night, and why I couldn’t be lulled to sleep by this “music” is beyond me.

            Unfortunately, as the day wore on, the sky turned cloudy with ugly, dark gray clouds billowing in, and the temperature dropping.  The weather tomorrow is not supposed to be much different from today.  Our plan is to try to leave early in the morning, hopefully, if the wind is not blowing 15 to 20 knots.  We’ll see – as Agatha Christy says, “The weather is changing.  The wind is quite strong and there are white horses on the sea.”