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ICW at Palm Coast |
We arose at 6AM to check the tide as our bow was beached to the shore and the boat was in a bow up / stern down position the same as I noted at my 3AM check. High tide was to be at 6AM but at 6:45 the water was still flooding in from Matanzas inlet, just 2 miles north of us. The result was to be a difficult undocking. We would be pushed by the swift current into the dock or into John's boat as we departed. A light drizzle had started and we had forgotten to zip closed the front vinyl curtains when we went to bed. By the way, yesterday Dottie phoned from Charlotte and said that it as snowing there while we were walking to Publix with Pidge and John with no jackets and enjoying the warm FL sunshine. So the little bit of wet on the flybridge was no problem to accept. By 7:15 we made the decision to pull out. As we backed off our bow was still beached on the bank. We had no difficulty in pulling away, though, and John assisted by holding our bow off his dock. We waved goodbye and headed south, not knowing how far we would get. Our original destination from St. Augustine had been Cocoa and it was 95 miles away. So we guessed our next stop to anchor for the night would be Titusville at the farthest. For those who don't know, Cocoa is just south of Cape Canaveral and Cape Kennedy NASA facilities and Titusville is just north of Cocoa.
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| Tugboat converted into a trawler parked at a home |
We first passed Palm Coast, the monster development by ITT that has been ongoing for 25 years or so. Right where the new Palm Coast Marina was recently dug out of the river muck, a "manatee zone" was marked with "Idle Speed - No Wake" from the start of the marina to the end of the marina. It is obvious that the manatees know that they are to set up home in front of any new big dollar development of marinas and high priced homes and the state then installs the manatee protection signs. We witnessed this phenomenon time and again as we headed south toward central Florida.
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| Easy Livin' on the ICW - Daytona area |
After Palm Coast we passed through the Daytona inlet area and saw many huge, beautiful homes as well as remote grasslands and tidal plains. The flood plains
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| 17 foot clearance and we are 17 ft 5 in tall. No probleml |
that we have traveled these past weeks are certainly the fish nurseries for the Atlantic fishes. With all the environmental restrictions of today, it is amazing at how much development has occurred on the waterway since my last passing 15 and more years ago.
1000 MILES !!!
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| 1000 mile reward! |
Somewhere around the ICW mile 840 Wayne surpassed the 1000 mile mark aboard Cool Change. This is for both the trip from FL to SC and now the trip back south. His reward , a kiss from the co-captain.
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| Lighthouse at Ponce DeLeon Inlet at Daytona |
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| The many bridges at Daytona |
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| Hundreds of pelicans roosting. What a stink!! |
After Daytona the ICW became more remote as we moved south. We encountered no boat traffic the entire day except for a short span in the Daytona inlet area. We were pretty much on our own as we traveled the 15 miles of the Mosquito Lagoon just north of NASA. We could see the VAB building and the shuttle launch pad from the ICW 15 miles away.
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| Looking out to Mosquito Lagoon, the VAB is in the distance 15 miles |
Seeing the VAB made us feel that we had finally reached central Florida . We stepped up our speed a bit to assure that we reached Titusville for anchorage in the deep water, 9 feet, just south of that town. We reached Haulover Canal about 3:30 and were closing in on Titusville so we chose to attempt to go on 20 miles further and anchor at Cocoa Village. Haulover Canal was named thus because it was originally a narrow spit of land separating the Mosquito Lagoon from the Indian River. People would haul their boats over land from one side to the other. The canal was dug in mid-century as the ICW was dredged to allow for river traffic, especially the barges that served petroleum to Florida's growing power plant infrastructure.
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| Bridge on the Haulover Canal |
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| Exiting Haulover Canal -Visibility soon got much worse! |
Exiting Haulover Canal began a somewhat harrowing navigational experience that demanded careful coordination between the nagivator (note the play on spelling) and the pilot. We take turns being the nagivator. The 3:30 PM sun was directly in our faces and aligned in the most negative of possible positions to our course from the canal to Titusville. I could not see the markers at all!! If I looked at the water, I was blinded to the plot on our GPS plotter when I turned to look at it. So our solution was for me to shade my eyes and to look at the GPS plotter to keep us on the right course and for Colleen to stare into the sun with the binoculars to pick out the channel markers that confirmed that the electronic course and our actual course were the same. This was absolutely necessary as we had high winds to our starboard side that were pushing us across the channel and off course. Also a major problem was that the plotter many times shows us more that 50 to 100 feet from where we actually are and the waterway is only 100 feet wide before you are in 2 foot water. So while the plotter shows us in the dredged channel, we could actually be ready to run aground. A major problem was that Colleen could not pick out the markers from the many signs warning of the manatee area outside the channel. These signs were set back in the shallows maybe 100 feet from the channel and looked like channel markers with the bright sun on the water ahead of us. If Colleen mistook one of these for a channel marker we would be aground in no time. We kept comparing our separate observations. Well, we made it without running aground but it was a harrowing 30 minutes and she still loves me I am told.
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| Titusville swing bridge - the last that we needed to have open |
Once we got to Titusville we realized the we could make Cocoa Village before dark if we kept the speed at 11mph and had no delays. We did anchor at Cocoa Village for Sunday night about 30 minutes after sunset. We had just enough daylight to position ourselves between the many boats already there at anchor. We were one of the furthest anchorages and very close to the channel. We were exposed to the wave action generated by high winds all night. The boat swung back and forth in very wide arcs all night on the 60 feet of anchor chain that we had put out and the waves bashed us a bit. We slept through it very well as we are now accustomed to the sounds of water just inches from our heads at night. During our travels this day we discussed staying in the Cocoa area for the month of December. We made calls to several marinas in the area and chose Harbortown Marina which is very close to Cape Canaveral. Marla, Colleen's friend from childhood, and Roger, my friend from childhood, and their spouses, Al and Marcy, are all excited that we will stay here through Christmas. We plan to have great times in December with the four of them as well as our family that still lives in Orlando. Al and Marla have loaned a pickup truck to us for our use while here. How generous is that? Now we can get groceries without backpacking ashore or hiring a cab. It was near freezing here last night --- Florida?? But it is far better than the low temps in Charlotte right now. We will see 75 degrees on Saturday though and it will be welcomed.
Wayne
Our address until January 10th should you want to drop by:
Harbortown Marina
Slip D29 - Cool Change
2700 Harbortown Drive
Merritt Island, FL 32952
