December 16 18 Two More Lay Days in Titusville and Passage to Dragon Point Anchorage 30 9 Miles

Titusville is a good place to leave ones boat for the Christmas holidays as our friends on Autumn Borne and Seeker are doing. But it is also a sightseeing launch pad. Our first lay day was devoted to JFK Space center on Cape Canaveral, on Merritt Island, which forms the eastern shore of the Indian River (think of boxes of fruit from Florida) and was the subject of my prior post.
Our second lay day was mostly errands: Post office, bank, pet food store, laundry, and supermarket. But we also visited the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. It has a one lane unpaved loop road about three feet above sea level in a very circuitous path  about 7.5 miles long with about fifteen stops for viewing wildlife, mostly birds. But there are alligators there too and the book says there are small mammals as well and their droppings attest to it. It is a birders paradise and made me wish I was a birder, because there are so many species.

t flies but its not a bird.

Out in the middle of nowhere, there is an additional 5 mile hiking loop further than the road goes. I walked about half a mile and back while Lene waited. The wet lands and marshes have a few high spots, about three feet high, and the road simply connected them. The place is not completely natural but rather carefully managed to let seawater in,or out, to preserve ideal depths for different species. I took a lot of pictures but few came out well. Another paved road takes you to Playalinda (pretty beach in Spanish) Beach but we ran out of time.

And our last lay day was for the Universal theme parks in Orlando. Lene wanted this and I think she has gotten roller coasters out of her system. It was mostly monster rides but also a lot of inside rides that are intended to be scary.  For the giant ones a person must check all things that could fly away with the violent shaking of ones body: bags, hats, glasses, phones, cameras, wallets, change etc. They have rooms with walls of lockers that use your fingerprint to lock and unlock them. These areas need to be enlarged a bit. They have attendants to keep things moving when the system fails. The locker areas are the only thing in the park that needs to be expanded. I did not take pictures except these of Lene in chartreuse top with colossal structures.

We were lucky it was not Christmas week when the crowds would be three times as large. Several rides said that the line was 45 minutes, but in fact the times were shorter than that. And they keep you moving and entertained while waiting.  There are two separate parks with different rides in each, though both had Harry Potter rides and villages (One London and the other the suburban school). We were not close followers of the HP phenomenon but enjoyed it anyway. One mistake was drinking a "butter beer:" it looks like a beer with a head, but it is all cream and butterscotch and sweeter than is good for anyones health. All told, we went on about a dozen rides or shows during the 8.5 hours we were in the park. Most rides and shows are based on Universals action thriller or cartoon characters. They have done a very good job with some of the shows. The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad was in a huge amphitheater with acrobats, diving, and explosives. A Neptune show was all large excellent computer animation and pyrotechnics. These two had a watery theme as did two rides that we skipped because the fun is getting drenched. Both of the HP rides and several others put you in cars which move along a track, swivel on center and tilt and shake in myriad ways while 3D computer animations confront you. Very clever use of burning hot big flames -- you could feel the heat. Similarly, when an aquatic villain loomed out there was a spray of real water -- Aldous Huxleys "The Feelies" have arrived. An old fashioned looking railroad takes you from the HP area of one park to the other, with attendants in each area appropriately costumed. But the view out the window of the train would be of the back sides of  the various rides so instead of they put us, six in a small cabin, on one side of the train and amused us two ways during the short ride. For one thing, silhouettes of HP characters were made to appear in cloudy silhouette in the trains corridor, nattering about aspects of the plot. On the other side, a computer animated view of the English scene was shown moving past as if you were traveling by train in England. Clever. And the park is very expensive: $135 per person plus $17 to park the car. And merchandising everywhere. (for an additional $50 per person you can get an express pass which gives you the right to get on a separate shorter line to wait for the rides and shows. Not needed the day we visited.) We had dinner back in Titusville at Chops -- good food at a reasonable price.
On passage day, breakfasting out (third day in a row), returning the rental car, showering, raising the dink and fueling led to a 10:45 departure for Dragon Point (There was a big statue of a dragon here but it has disintegrated). It is the southern pointy tip of Merritt Island. No wind to speak of so; motoring all the way. At the Point we hooked a left into the Banana River, on the eastern side of that island, and dropped the hook a couple of hundred yards up that river in 17 feet of water at high tide with 100 feet of snubbed chain, for a quiet evening aboard. We had thought to stop and anchor half way in Cocoa FL,but skipped it this time. I have stopped reporting dolphins because they are with us every day.

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March 27 29 Final Lay Day in Stuart Passage to Fort Pierce and Three Lay Days There 26 2 Miles

Lene had business to transact by phone so I dinked in alone and took the free shuttle to Westmarine to get a new dinghy painter and a new anchor snubber -- and got neither.
As to the painter, we do not tow the dink so a sturdier painter that floats (so as to not get into the boats propeller when we are in reverse) is not needed; we can simply use the one that came with the dink.
The need for a new snubber line arose because the old one was getting shorter and thinner. After being anchored for a long time during strong winds, it takes either patience with the marlinspike or just cutting off the last nine inches to undo the snubber where it is clove hitched to the anchor chain. This has happened several times and the line was getting progressively shorter. Also it was getting thinner, because of severe chafing. So time for a new one. You want this line to stretch so most of the lines we have aboard are not good for this purpose because they were made for other purposes, where you want the lines to NOT stretch. So Im looking at Westmarines selection of lines and -- wait a minute! I have an old soft stretchy nylon anchor rode. If I cut off a 25 foot length, this will work quite well with lots of line left for cutting off nine inches at a time over the next several years. But, I spent $100 on a good hardened stainless lock to prevent theft of the outboard from the dink.
Back at the dock, I installed the lock and hacked off another half foot of the tiller extender because it extended too far. The marinas bike took me the five minute ride to the local, less upscale Publix for two items Lene wanted.
Heading out back to ILENE, a terrible thing happened. In driving the dink at the dock, I bounced it off another dink into one of the concrete pilings, from which clam shells extended out like razors. WHOOSH! was the sound of the air escaping from a 1.5 inch gash, below the waterline in the port aft tube. Our almost brand new dink, wounded already! Are we destined to be cursed with dinghy problems? The dink can stay afloat with only one of its three tubes inflated, so is in no danger of sinking, but this was a most revolting development.
I hauled the dink up onto the Martinas dinghy dock and water that had entered the tube, which was quite flabby, poured out. The marina gave me a ride back to ILENE for the repair kit, sandpaper, and a pair of scissors to shape the patch into a diamond shape with rounded corners. You have to sandpaper both surfaces and mix a two part glue and apply it to the dink and the patch. I needed help in the form of tools from the marina office to open the two glue bottles. You have to use a metal or glass container to mix the two parts of the glue, hopefully in the correct nine to one proportions. the bottom of a beer can from a trash bin was the metal surface and its tab was the stirrer. I let the glue get tacky but not as long as the instructions called for, and slapped it into place as the first few drops of torrential rain hit. I let it cure for over two hours while reading in the Marinas clubhouse -- free popcorn!  Then I drove the dink back to the boat, without inflating the tube in question to full pressure. The instructions say to not pressure test the patch for 24 hours.  Well the patch did not fall off, but it has a fast "slow leak" requiring it to be pumped up each 24 hours. So we will try to have the job done by a professional in St. Augustine in a few days. My not so handy work:

The passage to Fort Pierce was not long. But with temperatures in the low 50s, a hard, cold 30 knots of apparent wind 20 degrees off the port bow made for quite a wind chill factor. (Yes, I know, I shouldnt be complaining to northern friends who have suffered a cruel winter.) But it makes us fear that we may have started north too soon. Anyway, hats, gloves and scarves were in order. Just a slog under grey skies. Not a peak sailing experience, in fact solely a motoring experience.

The Fort Pierce Municipal Marina has been redone since our charts were printed, after a hurricane took out much of the old marina. They spent a lot of money to build a series of barrier islands to prevent such damage. The new slips are almost ready for occupancy and we went to the remaining portion of the old, via a well marked but tricky new channel that is not on the charts yet. The tricky part is the current, which runs wicked strong N-S across the E-W channel. We had to go west but headed NW to "crab" through it diagonally. They put us starboard side to, on the outside "T" dock, opposite the fuel dock, so when we leave we make a "U" turn to port and our lines are set up for fueling.

The Marina is different from others in our experience in that a number of live-aboarders have cats rather than dogs. Playmates for our dynamic duo, but they grew up playing with each other, our pair get low grades in "playing well with others."

We arrived too late for the "biggest farmers market in Florida" but wandered through a large music festival on our way to the marina office: rock, blues, country, etc. Crowds were still arriving; we were serenaded that night. Normally, readers know, we explore a town and learn of its history, etc. But here we just hung out with friends. Janet and Mike, with whom we had dined on Greek food in Boca, invited us to their home for happy hour and took us to Publix on our way home the first evening there and to their home where Kathryn and Craig had come up from Boca to visit, the next. After this second happy hour we went out to the Second Street Cafe for dinner.

                          Kathryn, Craig, Lene, Roger, Mike and Janet

We hope to meet up with Janet and Mike in Oxford Maryland on our way home. Its amazing. We last saw them in Maryland in 2012 and Kathryn and Craig at her brothers wedding maybe six years ago. But put sailors together and the old bonds are re-cemented instantly-- a lot stronger than the two part glue fixing our Hypalon patch to the dink. Mike and Janet just moved into their new, large modern apartment facing east over the water on the fourth floor.

Rear view from entrance

We are amazed at how much home one can get here for such a reasonable price. If we were in the market for another home, we would be very tempted. We missed both of the distinguished visitors who were here with us: President Obama came to play golf and Jay Leno was in town for a performance with $85 and $115 tickets.

Front view, with Atlantic past the barrier island.

View to the left, with free anchoring where we will stay next time.

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