Monday, April 8th, we got up early to tend all the little things that needing doing before we launched. Dan did some touch-up painting. I did the last minute laundry. We collected all the trash. We were kind of hoping they would come earlier than 1100 to put the boat in the slings of the travel lift, but their work day was delayed, and they came a little later and lifted the boat into the slings, then went to another job and then took their lunch break. Dan and I sanded the parts of the keel that had been on the blocking and he painted those areas.
We were scheduled to launch at 1:00 pm, first thing after their lunch break, but it turned out another boat was having a mast stepped in the launch/haul-out area, and for some reason couldn’t detach the strap that tethered the top of the mast to the crane. So we all settled down to wait for someone to truck in some other machinery to deal with that. We got to experience the 2/3rds eclipse while we waited - the sunlight got a little dimmer around 2:00 pm but it didn’t last very long. By 2:30 the needed machinery had arrived, the strap was detached from the mast, and the sailboat was moved over to the side so we could be launched. It was all very anticlimactic, but Willie Dawes sure looked good!
Once in the water, we moved over to a nearby dock to fill the water tanks and Dan did a little washdown. Soon a manatee floated belly-up on both sides of us to take advantage of the fresh water spilling out the scuppers.
We finally left Titusville around 4:00 pm, and went out to anchor a few miles north, in Mosquito Lagoon. Goodbye Titusville!
Tuesday we cruised up to Daytona Beach, both of us happy to finally be on the move again. We had an uneventful night there and a very pleasant cruise on Wednesday to Marineland, where we took a spot on the marina seawall to ride out the wind shift and thunderstorm front on Thursday. This is a very reasonably priced municipal marina with access to the beach. Marineland is home to “the world’s first oceanarium” (est. 1938) and the place where the dolphins who starred in Flipper were trained. There’s not much else here within walking distance, but the parking lot to the beach is popular with food trucks. We enjoyed breakfast sandwiches this morning (Thursday, April 11) before the big front moved in. They have a large basket of blankets available to keep customers warm, and Dan promptly made use of one while we waited for our food.
The weather did not disappoint - we had very strong SW winds with gusts up to 30 knots at least, and lightning struck a tree across the ICW from us. But it was all over in a matter of hours, and the wind will die down this evening. We’ll continue our journey north in the morning.
Tommie kept my crocheting safe and warm during the storm.
No comments:
Post a Comment