Scarlet and Rhett

Today is January 18, 2016

January 13, 2016

Coordinates 2837471N, 8048360W

Titusville, FL

Mile 875

January 14-15, 2016

Coordinates 2815175N, 8060764W

Diamond Point 

Banana River, FL

Mile 914

January 16-17, 2016

Coordinates 2766471N, 8037278W

Vero Beach, FL

Mile 952

The Waterway Guide writes that Titusville lives up to its slogan “Gateway to Nature and Space”.  The Kennedy Space Center is within 20 minutes of the Titusville Municipal Marina. We did not go ashore, but anchored here as a waypoint to Melbourne.

I find it humorous to read the Waterway Guide write ups about places. 

I can hear Scarlet O’Hara and Rhett Butler having a conversation about Melbourne, ”Darling, we have finally left the cold north winds and have arrived in sunny Florida, oh how I have missed the palm trees and the warm weather”. “Scarlet I don’t give a damn what you say, I will not remove the flannel sheets and stop wearing long sleeve shirts just because you think it will be warm”.

Palm or Pine

When one is a boater it is important to be flexible since the weather is of a higher court. Rob takes great care gathering all the information on weather, so we make good decisions about traveling.  We had to anchor north of Melbourne in order to be protected from the wind.  We found an anchorage at Diamond Point on the Banana River.  The technology and information available today is so top notch that travel on the ICW is a pleasure trip most of the time.  We were able to find the anchorage quickly, with safe directions on entering the canal. We stayed here two nights to avoid going out in bad weather.

I took a picture of the chart plotter with the mapped out route that we entered. Look at the picture below and follow the brown line to the end.  The blue is shallow water, the yellow is land and the white is the deeper water, although still not deep, part of the ICW.  The shape with the anchor represents an anchorage, the yellow shape with a triangle and explanation point is a caution symbol and the green square is a channel marker that indicates a boat should go around it and not between it and the shore.  The blue symbol with the backward parenthesis designates a bridge, in this case, a draw bridge that needed to open to allow us to pass. The red sail boats represent marinas or yacht clubs.  The other symbols are not necessary to know at this time.

We managed to safely arrive at our destination and loved it.  I felt I belonged in the canal with dolphins, pelicans, hawks and a manatee sign promising manatees were in the area.

The next day we arrived in Vero Beach and it gave me lots to think about. We find traveling is more about being underway, seeing the birds, dolphins, landscape and less about the destination.  We like to see people we know or meet other boaters, but this being our first time on the waterway and leaving late in the fall, we don't see that many people.  The Waterway Guide describes Vero Beach as a favorite stop for cruisers, in fact it says that Vero Beach has a nickname “Velcro Beach” because people don’t want to leave. We didn’t see anything spectacular, so I don’t know what they are talking about. We did our walk to Vero Beach, the Atlantic side and back, 4 miles round trip and that was very nice. We rarely eat out and don’t shop much except for groceries, these are the things that the WG (Waterway Guide) talks about in each stop along the way. 

A fun project along the way and for rainy days.

We did not have curtains in the aft cabin and finally it was time to make them.  In the last post I talked about Rob and I shopping for the fabric.  Rather than shop for hours for the right fabric we stumbled across a cloth shower curtain that fit the bill.  The challenge was finding how to attach the curtain to the track above the window.  Brilliant that we are, we decided beads would be perfect. Check it out.

So after the curtain was cut and sewn I added the beads.  Take a look.

Voila

On the same day the curtains were finished we planned on watching the Patriots play the Kansas City Chiefs.  We were not able to get CBS, so we watched the game on our iPhone. Verizon has an NFL app. to watch games.  We don’t like to do that because it uses a fair amount of data, but after all, this is the playoffs.  

We had dinner with Brady

Now we are off again the seas are rough but the wind is behind us so the ride isn't too bad.

Tricia