Moving North

Melbourne – Titusville, Florida

Days on the Cruise:   2

Statute Miles Today:      38.4

Time Underway:    4 hours, 20 minutes

Cumulative Miles:   93.2 miles

The charts for the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway are marked every 5 miles with a purple “statute mile marker”, (look toward the bottom on the chart above for the the 880 mile marker), counting down the miles from south to north, ending at Mile Zero at Norfolk, Virginia.  We left Fort Pierce at SM 965 and midday today crossed the 900-mile marker.

The weather continued to be cloudy with some rain this morning  as we left the Mather Bridge/Dragon Point anchorage, but turned sunny by mid-morning.

The scenery is changing as Melbourne, FL marks the northern edge of the “no frost zone”, meaning only rarely does the area south of there ever see any frost.  Palm trees are rare now, and deciduous trees predominate instead.

We’re spending the next two nights in the Titusville Municipal Marina so we can visit the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral tomorrow.  This marina has fixed docks as opposed to floating docks, a first for us – all marinas in the Pacific Northwest have floating docks because the daily tidal variation is in the 8 to 15 foot range. So we fumbled a bit with tying our dock lines, but otherwise did fine. We’re still in the early stakes of learning to dock this 30,000 lb. boat, you’ll recall. The  marina is a bargain compared to the rates in south Florida: we’re paying $1.20/foot per night here, compared to the asking price of $3.05 a foot at the place we stayed in Ft. Dollardale. The $1.20 was after a 25% discount for being Boat US members.

This afternoon we noted an enormous billowing cloud of smoke across the waterway from the marina.  We’re told it was a “controlled burn” much like they do in forests in other parts of the country at times, but in this case they’re burning  old palms, scrub and other “junk” undergrowth. Who knew they did this in areas with no forests?  Not us.

We sure hope the presidential candidates quit talking about bombing the snot out of Iran.  Among other things all this war talk is driving up fuel prices.  We paid $3.94 per gallon today for 220 gallons. Ouch!