Day 103 - 18 March

We planned to anchor in Rock House Creek where we stopped on the way down to the Keys. But we were making such good time and we want to get to St. Augustine tomorrow, so we decided to stop at Daytona Beach at a new anchorage north of the city. The Anchorage was a bit exposed, but the holding was excellent according to Skipper Bob and he was right. The anchor came up in the morning with glue-like mud stuck to it. It took an extra effort to hose all the mud off as Joe was hauling it in...no danger of dragging even with the gusty winds from the south!

The route from Cocoa to Daytona isn't one of our favorites. It consists of long, straight, narrow, shallow channels through wide expanses of water...the Indian River, Mosquito Lagoon and Banana River. Also, the wind and waves were on our stern which made it a rolling trip struggling with the helm all the way.

Other than the opportunity to see a lot of birds, dolphin, manatees, etc., the only interesting part of the trip is passing by the Patrick Air Force Base and the Kennedy Space Center where all of our space history is centered. The Space Shuttle Vehicle Assembly Building can be seen for miles and is an impressive sight not only from a distance but from Joe's recollection of a tour of the Space Center several years ago.

We missed the shuttle launch of STS 123 last week and we hoped to catch a glimpse of the military GPS payload which was launched on Saturday. But Miami was too far south...although Joe thinks he saw the booster rocket separation...for the shuttle launch and it was too cloudy for us to see the military payload launch from Cocoa early Saturday morning. It would surely have been an impressive sight to see either of the night launches.

Just north of the Space Center is the Haulover Canal which is a historic channel between the Indian River to the west and the Mosquito Lagoon to the east and is just north of Merritt Island. The Canal is also part of the Canaveral National Seashore. Read about them at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaveral_National_Seashore and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Haulover_Canal.

Manatees are everywhere in Central Florida. This one was in the water in the Haulover Canal. They still look like floating logs and have to be protected by a set of power boat speed management measures. Sailboats are slow enough that they pose small danger to manatees and most wounding or killing appears to be from strikes from fast moving power boats. In fact we kept a close watch for manatees, but all we saw were dolphin.

Just offshore of Central and Northern Florida and Georgia are the Right Whale feeding, calving and migration habitat between 1 December and 31 March. We are keeping a close lookout when we are on the Atlantic. However, there are only an estimated 350 Right Whales left in the Atlantic. They are a rare sight and it's illegal to approach closer than 500 yards.