Begin – 29.20N  81.09W – 7:50am – Halifax Marina – Daytona Beach, Fla

End – 28.08N  80.36W – 3:00pm – Anchor Marina – Indian Harbor Beach, Fla

Total fuel:  0 gallons (we didn’t put fuel on tonight, waited till morning)

Travel time:  7:10 hours

Miles traveled:  78 miles

Seas – ICW Calm until the T-Storm

We started our morning early today… we were going to make a push for West Palm Beach however you know South Florida in the summer… it all started well, took off south on the ICW calm seas… about 8:40 Matthew started shouting at me to look at my basket!  This was our first mechanical failure of the trip!  I almost lost the basket and with the grace of God I didn’t lose any nuts or bolts, the eye bolt and turnbuckle where just hanging… couldn’t believe it!  How lucky can you get!

Fortunately Kelly was able to pull up beside me grab the basket from the water and place it back on my deck, I was able to put the two bolts and turnbuckle back together after about a 10 minute repair we were running once again.

It was smooth sailing at this point and we quickly put behind us Ponce Inlet and New Smyrna Beach, I really liked this section of the ICW, very quaint and has some move in qualities for sure.

As we approached Kennedy Space Center  we hung a hard left into a cut,  a little passed Mosquito Lagoon it was at this cut  I got my first good glimpse of a Manatee… they are big and very cool.  We ran on for another hour and heard tell of some fuel close by… we ran to the “World Famous Docs Bait House”!  What a great joint… I’m glad within 10 minutes of tying up our rigs we saw a giant storm brewing to our west and it was on us within 15 minutes blowing 50 to 60 knot winds, complete with thunder and massive lighting!

Docs was a great place…  we played some pool ,  looked at some live bait, had some beers and within 45 minutes the storm was all gone!

In light of this little event we decided to call it early and run about 17 miles south to Melbourne Beach, we ended up at Anchorage Yacht Basin, very interesting place… they didn’t want to take us in because they are a boat club… never heard of such a thing until this day, the dock hand (sorry man I forgot your name!) was totally cool and really nice, he made us some hand pressed coffee… that was a real treat, thank you Sir!

We met the marinas owner mother and she called her son (because she didn’t know what to do with us ;-), he was kind enough to let us tie up for the night.  His mom was wonderful and she recommended a bunch of great sounding restaurants… she really wanted us to eat at a Cuban restaurant, however she couldn’t recall the name, so she directed us towards the Green Turtle seafood restaurant.  We called a taxi and headed towards the beach looking for a hotel… the taxi driver was a neat guy from Barbados, he recommended a very inexpensive hotel right across the street from the beach… nice spot.   As good fortune would have it the Cuban restaurant was actually attached to the same parking lot as our hotel, this sure made our dinning efforts a snap!

The boys and I had a fantastic authentic Cuban dinner at the Cuban Island Restaurant, it was off the hook, great food and a really good waitress!  We had a few drinks and called it a night.

Full and tired we hit the racks… we each had our very own bed… one room but separate beds… great night sleep!

Over & Out

Captain Kelly, SPC
(Self Proclaimed Captain)