Titusville, FL

Sorry for the lack of posts. Kevin wrote a post while we were in St. Augustine and we sent it to the website via email but didn't realize that it didn't show up, so I've put it on there now. We spent the past week in Daytona, FL watching boats run aground trying to get into the anchorage. In Daytona, the ICW becomes a narrow channel in the middle of a shallow river that runs pretty much straight north and south. There is an anchorage off to the west side of the channel but there is a huge shoal running parallel between it and the anchorage. To anchor, you have to motor south until you are clear of the shoal, and then you can make a right-hand u-turn to get into the anchorage. We saw four or five boats run aground trying to come straight in. Despite the fact that I got on the radio and tried to tell them how to get into the anchorage. But when they don't have a radio on, what can you do, other than sit back and watch the show? It was like they saw some boats anchored and figured they could just head right on over without consulting their charts or anything. One guy who was singlehanding ran aground a couple hundred feet from us. While he was waiting for high tide, another boat came up and ran aground about 20 feet away from him. We could see them talking to each other from their boats, and then the second guy managed to use his engine to get himself back afloat, did a 180, and proceeded to run himself hard aground again. Yeah, that's it, take navigational advice from the guy who's run himself aground. We ended up hopping in the dinghy and helping the singlehander (an older gentleman whose charts were so old they did not show the shoal) by sounding out the depths around his boat to help him find deeper water.

On Tuesday we continued south to Titusville. I had never heard of Titusville before but I had heard of Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. Titusville is directly across the river from the NASA launch site. Kevin specifically chose to time our visit so that we could watch the shuttle launch, which is supposed to happen on Thursday night. From our slip we can see the shuttle sitting there on the launch pad, waiting to rocket off into space. So we will have the best seats in the house.

We will be at this marina for about a month since it's close to Orlando and about the same price as the moorings in our usual December spot (Stuart). We have already met some of our neighbors, who seem very friendly. The website made the marina out to be a paradise complete with jacuzzi, fitness center, raquetball courts, wi-fi and a sauna. We couldn't believe the monthly rate would be so low with all those amenities. Unfortunately they haven't updated their website in a long time. Seems they are under new ownership so the fitness center equipment has been sold off, the raquetball courts no longer exist and the jacuzzi has been filled in with dirt and turned into a planter. Kevin is especially disappointed that the wi-fi signal is too weak for us to pick up at our boat. So I guess the moral is: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. But it's not all bad; the sauna still works.

Where we are:
Location=Titusville, FL
Lat=28 33.258 N
Lon=80 47.709 W