LindaJean: Wildlife Wild life

March 9, 2016

St. Augustine, Florida

Mile Marker 777 ICW

We have stayed at Banana River mile marker 913, Cocoa mile marker 898, Titusville mile marker 885, Titusville Marina mooring mile marker 878, Daytona Beach mile marker 822, and now St. Augustine mile marker 777, all on the ICW. The stops have all been on the hook except for the one mooring at the Titusville Marine. I have changed the format in how I tell you where we are and where we have been. I was not having fun trying to give specifics details and this is suppose to be fun.

I have been in some remarkable places, seen some remarkable things since I last wrote and I want to tell you about them.

One of my favorite anchorages on the way south was Banana River. We found this little piece of paradise and safety when we were looking for a port in a storm. You enter Banana River anchorage around Dragon Point. I didn’t know the origin of the name until one of our cruising buddies told us. Sure enough we could see the remains of a dragon the size of a small plane that had been slain by the years of harsh weather and seas. I probably told you about this anchorage on the way down, because I was so excited to be safe and watching the dolphins and pelicans play. This time there were a lot of crew shell teams practicing. It is hard to find a place to go ashore, one place is less than pleasant to tie your dinghy and the other place is a beautiful park where the athletes launch their water craft. Rob dropped me off there to do food shopping. We were not sure we were allowed to tie up.

Cocoa Village was fun to explore. There is a day dock where we tied up the trawler, so we could come and go without having to take a dinghy ride to shore. But at the end of the day we had to move to an anchorage.

We shopped for no-see-um screen. If you had been anchored near mangroves you would be very excited about buying the screen. We had to spend an extra day in Cocoa waiting for the screen to come by UPS to a local store. It has not been installed yet and I have been bitten by a few bugs but nothing like it was. Rob is not bothered at all by these little “buggers”. My father had terrible reactions to bug bites and I think that gene has been past on to me.

Next stop, Titusville!

SpaceX launch

I will post pictures but most of you have probably seen the launch in some news format. The talk of the “town” was about one of SpaceX’s attempts at a launch,a delay because of a tug boat in the safety zone. Poor Captain, I would have been very upset with myself and embarrassed to have delayed a take off.

What a glorious experience.

We stayed on a mooring at the Titusville Marina only 7 miles north of our last anchorage. We stayed on the mooring for the weekend so we could visit the Kennedy Space Center and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The first time I started hearing the name Merritt Island was when Rob told me he was signing us up to win the HGTV 2016 home, on the island. I don’t think we won.

We rented a car for a few days, the first time since we have been on this adventure. It was very exciting to grocery shop knowing that we didn’t have to carry it in our backpacks and walk a few of miles.

The first day we visited the wildlife refuge. Rather than stumble through a description I will let you read it as written in the literature we received.

Merritt Island Nation Wildlife Refuge is an overlay of NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center where the world’s most advanced technology launched man to the moon, and today, contiues space exploratioin.  However, there is another kind of “space” here, one that is set aside for over 500 different species of wildlife and 1000 species of plants.

Contained within this 35-mile long barrier island is a rich abundance of plants and animals from both the subtropical and temperate climate zones.  The Refuge is strategically located on the Atlantic Flyway, a major bird migratioin corridor, and it is a key resting stop for many migrating bird species.  Merritt Island NWR’s habitats support one of the highest numbers of endangered and threatened species found within the refuges of the National Wildlife Refuge System.  The unique relationship the Refuge shares with NASA bears testimony that nature and technology can coexist.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Part of the visit is a 7 mile loop through many of habitats. We saw tricolored heron, snowy egret, reddish egret, white ibis, great blue heron, roseate spoonbill, long billed dowitcher, so many I had to stop trying to identify them and just enjoy their beauty. I thought about several of you I know would have enjoyed being there. I would not miss the opportunity to visit all of the Kennedy Space Center and Merritt Island. On day two of the car rental we visited the Space Center, a very unique experience to see the site of the SpaceX launch we saw on Friday.

Yesterday we traveled to St. Augustine working our way north and today we head to Jacksonville to have dinner with people we met on our trip south. It is all very exciting.

Prepare to see the glow of the lift off