Two Days of Travel - Titusville to Daytona to St. Augustine

Out blog for today will catch you up on the last two days of travel. The wifi in Daytona as well as the hotspots on our phones was very weak and kept us from posting last night. We are in St. Augustine now and the wifi is working very well. They use OnSpot Wifi here, the same as our home marina. Every time we go to a marina with this wifi system, we have no problems and all our devices connect immediately.

Titusville to Daytona:
It was an easy departure from Titusville Marina. We made good time up to the Haulover Canal that took us from the Indian River to Mosquito Lagoon. It was a cloudy and rainy morning. As we travelled through the canal, the SpaceX launch took place. We could just make out the flame from the rocket before it disappeared into the clouds. We got into Mosquito Lagoon and picked up some speed. As we neared the north end of the lagoon, we experienced another surprise. The chartplotter, the electronic device with the GPS and mapping system, suddenly went completely blank. It wasn't an immediate disaster as we could easily stay in the channel by following the markers and we had the iPad as a backup. It has all of the same charting software. The big loss was the depth sounder. It is pretty critical when you get to shallow areas. I tried turning the electronics off and on a couple times, and everything eventually came back to life. I have no idea what may have caused the temporarily failure, but we all know that every once in a while, shutting down and restarting will get our devices working again.

Later that morning, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The temperature warmed up nicely and it turned into a pretty nice day. We made it to Daytona without any other surprises.

Dealing with boat speed and the creation of wakes is a constant concern. After passing the Ponce De Leon Inlet at New Smyrna Beach, a sport fishing boat joined the ICW from an adjoining channel. He was going very fast and severely "waked" a smaller fishing boat that was anchored near the shore. There were kids on the boat and you could see everyone being tossed around. I am very sensitive to this, so I slowed down when passing them. I always worry about someone getting hurt, especially children and older adults. It is inconvenient, but I have chosen to err on the side of caution and slow down when passing other boats, whether they are underway or anchored. I also reduce speed when close to private docks. My wake could do some serious damage to someone's water toys. 

We enjoy watching the wildlife all around the water. We see a lot of different birds on shore as well as on the water. Dolphin spotting is a major activity as we travel on the water. We have seen many dolphin, including young ones swimming with their mothers.

We stayed at the Halifax Harbor Marina in Daytona. It is a very large city owned marina. It is pretty well run, despite the wifi issue. We had time to walk around the marina, but did not venture into town.

Daytona to St. Augustine:

It was fairly easy run from Daytona to St. Augustine. No surprises today. The only challenge was at the Matanzas Inlet, and even that was not so bad. This is an area known for shoaling, but since it was dredged, the depths are pretty good. We went through exactly at low tide, so I wasn't completely confident that all would go well.

I wasn't the only one a little concerned. Shortly after we passed through the inlet, a large sport fisher boat passed us. The captain radioed me to inquire about the depths at the inlet. I let him know that the shallowest water we had seen was 7 to 8 feet in the channel and that seemed to reassure him.

Before getting to Matanzas Inlet, we passed a bunch of beautiful homes at Flagler Beach and Palm Coast. There was more boat traffic than expected for a Monday. It was a warm day and the rains had stopped. I'm sure that encouraged people to get out. The fishermen were out as usual.

​We arrived in St. Augustine early afternoon, got situated and headed into town.  I have to say that mask compliance is the lowest here of all places we have been so far. The stores required masks to be worn and all the workers were wearing them.

St. Augustine is a fun city to visit and it is beautiful at night. We were able to walk around a little bit in the afternoon and get some exercise. Glad we got to see the lights.

The Florida East Coast Railroad Line has been a consistent through this trip. The line goes by the marina in Stuart and the train has been audible in most of the marinas, including St. Augustine. It is a very busy line with numerous freight trains each day.
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Tomorrow will be the last day of this cruise. We will get back to Jacksonville and the boat will be hauled out of the water for some service. It will be a good time to see the hull and inspect the running gear. We will also spend some time preparing the boat for our return at the end of February to head further south before returning to the Chesapeake Bay.