FL: Daytona Beach Anchorage to Marineland Marina

Sunday 3/18/2018
Depart: Bethune Point Park, Daytona Beach Anchorage 9:45
Arrive: Marineland Marina 2:05
Distance: 31 nm

We enjoyed our quiet stay on calm waters at the Bethune Point Park in Daytona Beach. Here are views from our anchoring spot.

Bethune Point Park

The path into and out of the anchorage took us through / beside a mooring field of sailboats. We had to come in and exit by Red 44 to avoid shallow areas of water.

Exiting Anchorage by Sailboat Mooring Field

We continued to see storm / hurricane damage as we traveled along the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Perhaps this sunken sailboat is among the casualties.

Better stay to the left of that green marker!

Many of the sights we saw today looked familiar from prior trips up and down the coast. Some scenes that stood out ...

Leaning Tower of Evergreen

River Junction at Fox Cut

Sailboat on the ICW

We arrived at Marineland around 2:00. As soon as I could I stripped the bed of sheets and headed for the laundry. Clark meanwhile washed the salt and anchorage dirt from the boat and then worked with the dock master to complete a pump-out of the holding tank.

Clark finished the afternoon with a Facetime call with our son and his family, and then his daily sunset picture taking.

After dinner we spent the evening preparing for our trip home to New Jersey.

FL: Bethune Point Park - Daytona Beach

Saturday 3/17/2018
Depart: Titusville City Marina 11:00
Arrive: Bethune Point Park Anchorage, Daytona Beach, 4:25
Distance: 41 nm

We slept late today. I guess we had too much excitement yesterday and needed to recover. Later, while Clark was finishing his departure preparations, I slipped away for a quick visit with Jim and Joann on Namaste Too before leaving the marina. I guess I took too long because eventually my captain came looking for me. It was time to go.

In a couple of days we need to travel (by car) to New Jersey to take care of "at home" things like dentist appointments and driver license renewals. While Clark drove the boat today, I started making a list of assorted things we need to bring along on the trip home that I might forget like our EZ Pass device for the toll roads.

While piloting the boat, Clark found one of his favorite photo ops. He did not request my help, so Auto Pilot must have helped him out on this one.

Looking down the tracks 

As part of today's trip we traveled down Haul Out Canal where we saw busy Saturday boating fun in progress. Boaters enjoyed water sports, fishing, and beaches. It looked like so much fun, but I kept wondering if they found bugs to be problematic as they played in the water.

Picnic Site with Kayaks

Fishing Boat (one of very many)

Another group of kayaks

We heard a boater call a bridge up ahead to find out the vertical clearance provided. He said he needed 23 feet of clearance. The bridge tender refused to tell him saying, "I am not authorized to read the number board. You must do that yourself." After reading the number board, the boater said, "24 feet. I'm good and do not need an opening."

Clark's chart data told him that the bridge clearance is listed as 28 feet. We also need 23' of clearance. Just before we got to the bridge, a sailboat had passed through. The bridge closed as we approached.

Sailboat passing through bridge.
Closed before we got there.

The number board for the bridge said 22' when we arrived. Knowing that if the bridge height had not been sufficient for the last boater, we would see a wreck, we passed under the closed bridge. We had at least two feet of clearance overhead.

After we exited the canal, we saw some hurricane damage along the waterway.

Lopsided building and dock 

Really messed up dock and ramp

One thing about the ICW that we find frustrating are long stretches of slow speed, no wake zones. We had one today that Clark calculated took us 40 minutes to travel. He was irritated because a fast boat zoomed by him only to slow down in front of him. Clark said he had to then go slower than normal in a slow-speed zone because the other boat had a different hull speed than Sunset Delight.

When we finally completed the slow speed zone, we found a frenzy of weekend boaters zipping this way and that and sometimes in circles. They cut in front of us, sped past us, and generally made us wonder how they managed to stay out of accidents. I know some boaters who refuse to go out on weekends. Today's bunch of crazies supported that choice.

Along the way today we heard and saw a boat up ahead that had an unusual appearance. Clark recognized it as a Hovercraft. Something we have not encountered before.

Odd-looking vessel

Hovercraft Vessel

We dropped anchor at Bethune Point Park near Daytona Beach. Clark had read that free WiFi is available here. We did not find it. He did, however, find a WiFi connection via xFinity. The WiFi was so good here that we had a very successful Facetime session with our Idaho son and family, and I managed to blog all night long after dinner with hardly a hiccup.

Clark said he was not impressed with tonight's sunset. It looked pretty impressive to me.

Sunset at Daytona Beach, Florida

FL: Kennedy Space Center

Friday 3/16/2018
No boat travel.

We met Joann and Jim from Namaste II at the dock master's office just before 8:00 a.m. to grab an Uber drive to the Kennedy Space Center. I tried to reserve a rental car for the trip, but due to Spring Break, no rental cars could be found on the "space coast".  With that unfortunate news, we worried that we would face a mob scene at the space center.

The Uber driver got us to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) well before the facility opened at 9:00. We walked up to the ticket booth where we had no wait to buy our admission tickets. So far so well!

Entering the grounds, we stopped for some picture taking.

Clark and Ev
at Kennedy Space Center

Joann and Jim
at KSC

Then made our way to the bus tour station. Nancy from California Lady told us when we saw her to make sure to do that first to avoid lines. We found a minimal line and multiple buses ready to provide tours. One bus loaded and then another pulled up in front of us. Since we were so close to the front of the line for this bus, we literally got front row seats!

Our tour guide, Tommy, worked at NASA for years. He said that when he worked there, he got in trouble for "telling stories" about the site. Now he gets paid to tell his stories. He proved to be a fountain of information - not only about the history of NASA but the wildlife living on the grounds as well.

On bus approaching the Vehicle Assembly Building

The Vehicle Assembly Building is huge. To get a feel for the size of the building, Tommy told us that "in volume" the Empire State Building could fit inside the building four times over. At one point, as we passed the building, he pointed out the "rat holes" at the bottom of the building that in reality were 7-foot tall doorways for the people to use to enter / exit the building.

On the bus tour, we could also see the two launch pads 39A and 39B.

Launch Pad at KSC

Liquid Hydrogen - Flammable Gas Tank

On our tour, we got to see some of the wildlife Tommy told us about.

Alligator, Turtle and Egret on KSC grounds

After his presentation and bus ride around the grounds, Tommy dropped us off at the Apollo / Saturn V visitor center for a walking tour of the museum.

The size of the spacecraft is mind boggling.

People look very small compared to the size of Saturn V

Clearly a lot of time and effort has been put into laying out the visitor centers on the grounds to optimize crowd control and flow. I found touring the facilities a pleasant and educational experience with minimal hassle caused by dealing with other people.

As part of the experience, we sat on bleachers overlooking the NASA Control Center. While we watched, the stations lit up and the seats shook during a simulated count down to rocket launch.

Control Center

Every time we thought we had seen it all at the Saturn V building, we found something else to look at.

Moon Boots

Space Capsule

When we finally decided to move on, we took another bus, driven by Julie this time, back to the main visitor campus to tour the other buildings on the grounds.

The physical size and height of the spacecraft are quite awe inspiring.

We look so tiny!

Looking up up up

For the next part of our exploration, we visited the Atlantis building.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

Some of the exhibits allowed hands-on participation.

Clark "piloting" the Space Shuttle

The exhibits brought back so many memories of the space race for the four of us. To see an actual space shuttle and hear its history was fantastic.

Served on 33 Missions during 26 Years of Service
Flown 126 Million Miles by 207 Astronauts
Spent 307 Days in Space
Retired July 2011

A time capsule will be opened in 2061 at the 50th anniversary of Atlantis's last flight. Joann remarked that the time capsule was huge. I wonder what it contains. Clearly I will never know.

We also toured the "Heroes and Legends" building and the "Journey to Mars" exhibit. We poked our noses into the "Nature and Technology" center and decided to skip that building. Before leaving the grounds we stopped at the ice cream shop for a treat where we all agreed we were burned out for the day by "information overload". We agreed that one day was not enough to see it all.

Having worried about crowds, we agreed that we had it easy today with minimal waits. Joann said Clark's birthday brought us good Karma. Multiple times during the day we had no-wait moments just before a long line formed. This proved true at the ticket booth in the morning, the bus tour, the lunch counter and even the ice cream shop where we walked up and bought our ice cream only to turn around and see a line wrapped around behind us waiting to be served. Amazing Karma!

At the ice cream shop I checked the Uber app and found at least four cars waiting in the parking lot for calls. I put in my request and had less than a minute to wait for our ride to appear. Since we remembered where we had been dropped off in the morning, we readily found our ride and piled into the car for the ride back to the marina.

Since I provided dinner on board Sunset Delight two nights ago, Joann said it was her turn for dinner on her boat tonight. At 6:00 Clark and I joined Jim and Joann on Namaste Too for a relaxing and delightful evening. Today provided a very special birthday for Clark and a wonderfully memorable experience for all of us!

Cocktails before dinner on Namaste Too
Jim, Ev, and Sammy

Joann busy in the galley

Clark, Ev, and Jim
enjoying our chili dinner

We stayed on Namaste Too until well after dark, but during the evening, Clark popped out to get his sunset picture of the day.

Sunset at Titusville City Marina

FL: Titusville City Marina

Thursday  3/15/2018
Depart: Melbourne Anchorage 9:45
Arrive: Titusville City Marina 2:15
Distance: 36 nm

When we woke this morning, we felt the effects of the latest cold front that moved through Florida. The thermometer in our stateroom measured 59 degrees. Needless to say getting out of bed proved difficult this morning. As my mother taught me years ago, I pulled the clothes I planned to wear today into bed with me to warm them up before getting dressed. That helped!

Once again I hid down below in the cabin while underway to stay warm and let Clark deal with the cold temps on the flybridge. My allergies were particularly bad today, and I was as miserable as could be on today's ride. I do not know what was in the air, but my nose did not appreciate it being there one bit.

We pulled into the Titusville Marina mid-afternoon.

At the marina's picnic / grill site, I noticed an interesting sign I have not seen elsewhere.

I believe this sign is meant for dog owners.

What they should have at the Titusville City Marina is a "no pigeon zone". The unmanned boat next to ours has been turned into a coop by the pigeons. They walked the docks around our boat making cooing noises and pooping plenty on the decks and docks. I found it pretty "fowl".

While we have been either extremely busy, such as with battery replacement, or hanging out in anchorages, my laundry has been piling up. Initially, I was not paying attention. Then in Fort Pierce I refused to pay their exorbitant prices for washers and dryers. Consequently, I made a beeline to the laundry room as soon as we got settled at the dock. At $1.50 per wash and $.075 per dry, they offered bargain basement prices compared to Fort Pierce.

The Titusville marina offered reasonable WiFi service, so, after dinner, Clark and I watched last weekend's episode of Madam Secretary that we have been unable to watch elsewhere. Since he has been looking forward to seeing the show, the blog had to be put on back burner for tonight.

FL: Vero Beach Anchorage to Melbourne Anchorage

Wednesday 3/14/2018
Depart: Vero Beach Anchorage 9:20
Arrive: Melbourne Bridge Causeway Anchorage 1:30
Distance: 30 nm

Normally I spend the majority of the time cruising up on the flybridge with Clark. Today, however, due to the chill in the air, I decided to stay down below. I cleaned the galley, worked on my blog, and cooked dinner while Clark piloted the boat. On one of my trips up top, I did get to see some dolphins playing in our wake.

Dolphin play time

We prearranged with Joann and Jim on Namaste II that we would spend the night in the same anchorage and then continue on together to Titusville for our joint visit to the Kennedy Space Center. About the time Jim and Joann pulled into the anchorage, all heck broke out on our boat. One of the smoke detectors decided to go berserk.

Last time the smoke detector went off for "no apparent reason", Clark blamed my cooking even though I had long since completed my dinner preparations. This time there was no excuse.

I had my hands over my ears to cut down on the noise, and I told Clark to go get his engine room ear muffs to protect his hearing. He carried it outdoors and set it on the deck.  Even in the fresh air it would not stop squealing.  I nearly suggested he throw it overboard but thought it might offend the dolphin's ears!

He left it on the deck and came back in the cabin to call customer support for the unit. The person he talked to indicated it might be a known defect, had him run some tests that, per the tech's decision, failed to provide satisfactory results, and then said she would send a replacement unit under warranty.

Fortunately, during the process of the conversation, she helped Clark make the unit stop generating noise. She told him to spray air from an aerosol can into the unit to clean away excess dust. (Clark just happens to carry this on the boat.) He did as she said, and voila, no noise! For the time being, Clark has put the unit back up on the wall. If it starts to squeal on its own at 3:00 a.m. for no reason, it might just sail off the boat into the "drink" with a little help from me.

During all this chaos on our boat, Namaste II arrived at the anchorage. I saw them arrive and wondered if Sammy, their dog, was disturbed by the ear-piercing noise coming from our boat. After Sammy had her requisite trip to the beach, Jim and Joann rowed over to our boat for docktails and a visit.

Jim and Joann coming to visit 

We had such a nice time talking, we did not want our time together to end. Fortunately, I had cooked more than enough food for four earlier in the day while traveling. All I had to do was heat it up and we had dinner on board Sunset Delight with minimum fuss and bother.

When the sun started to set, it was time to say goodnight. Later, Joann must have had the same thoughts as Clark and I. We took pictures of her boat, and she took pictures of ours.

Namaste II
Anchored by Melbourne Bridge Causeway

Sunset Delight
at Sunset!