Daytona, Titusville, Melbourne & Vero Beach

We departed Palm Coast Monday morning in pleasant conditions for the easy 25 mile run down to Daytona, arriving just after lunch. The route is through the Halifax River, which is a long, wide, shallow body of water with a narrow ICW channel. We stopped at the Halifax River Yacht Club, which we had stayed at before on our “Covid Run” north in 2020. The club marina is very nice with a pool and nice facilities. 

Daytona is a bit of a work in progress though. There is no real city centre to Daytona, and the few blocks of the historic downtown which are quite nearby are in varied states of improvement.  The boulevard is being rebuilt with what will be a nice waterfront walkway, but is not there yet. 

The highlight of the area is the Jackie Robinson ball field, home of the Daytona Tortugas.  It is at this field where Jackie Robinson first played in a major league game, while with the Brooklyn Dodgers farm team, the Montreal Royals. 

The route continues down the Halifax River, which is more of a inland estuary than a river, through Mosquito Lagoon, which is a 20 mile long, 3 mile wide body of water mostly <4’ deep, except for the 100’wide, 10’ wide ICW channel.  The route continues through a 1.5 mile narrow channel into the Indian River.  The Indian River is a 100 mile long stretch of mostly 4’ deep except again for the 100’ wide ICW channel.

There are a number of derelict boats down the  Halifax and Indian Rivers, remnants of past hurricanes.  On this day we saw at least 10.  Owners dont have hurricane coverage and have abandoned the boats.  

There are few stops south of Daytona until Titusville.  The next stops are too distant for an easy days run  so Titusville is kind of a port of last resort.  A very sad town which tries to characterize itself as the gateway to the Space Coast, but doesn’t have a lot of success.  The marina is well protected from the large expanse of water north, so at least it has that going for it. 

We departed the next day in fine conditions, bound for Melbourne area.  It could not have been a finer day.  Warm, almost no wind, and dozens of dolphin engagements.  Over the past couple of weeks our daily routine has shifted slowly in where we spend our day.  As the days cooled a few weeks ago, we spent increasing time at the lower, interior steering station, with the heat on in the morning, and going to the upper and outside steering station mid morning.  A few days on previous weeks, we spent the entire day inside. This day we were “uptop” very early.  

We took a diversion mid morning up the Cape Canaveral barge canal to a marina with particularly good fuel prices.  As we hadn’t fuelled since we left Chesapeake a month ago, we were due.  With this boats range, we can afford to be be very choosy as to where we stop for fuel.  It was an interesting diversion as we continued up the canal a ways after fuelling  to see Port Canaveral, the cruise ship port.  We even saw an alligator in the channel.  

The balance of the day south to the Melbourne area was glorious.  Dolphin encounters are getting more numerous with dozens today, some for only a few minutes and some for nearly half an hour.  At one point we had 5 in the bow wake, 4 in the starboard side wake, and 2 on the port side.  They are so entertaining as they surf along in the wakes, turning from side to side to see us better.  And they really seem to respond to sounds we make for them.  

Our arrival in Melbourne mid afternoon was to 27C and dolphins circling the boat. There was still time to explore so Greg got on his bike and rode the 2km to the ocean beach to see the sights.  We were really looking forward to watching the SpaceX launch that evening, but it was deferred one day.  

The next day we had an easy 4 hour run down to Vero Beach so didn’t hurry to get away.  A bit of north wind pushing us from behind meant not quite as warm as the previous day, but still pretty nice.  We were uptop the whole run though.  We arrived Vero Beach early afternoon to warm temps and light winds.  

This last few miles coming into Vero Beach must have one of the finest stretches of residential properties in South Florida. 

Since we departed south from Norfolk, we have travelled 950 statute miles on the ICW.  That distance allows for all the twists and turns of the channels. Interestingly, we have travelled about 550 nautical miles south, and over 200 miles west.  At one point in North Florida, it had been over 275 miles west. If we include the loop thru Chesapeake Bay, we have done about 1300 statute miles since leaving Our home port in early October.  This last leg to Vero Beach has been relatively short at 120 miles. 

The boat will be docked here for 10 days or so as we take a bit of a break.  This is a very nice and protected marina, in a gated golf and tennis community, with friendly neighbours and good access to a grocery store.  There are four Canadian boats in the dock, representing Halifax, PEI, Toronto and Vancouver.  

We have done some boat clean up and installed the canvas covers to protect the wood while we are away. Other than that, not much needs to be done. 

Last year was our 40th anniversary and we had planned on a family vacation to celebrate.  That didn’t happen due to Covid of course.  So we are having an early Xmas get together with Sean & Laura and Tristan & Dom, at Club Med Punta Cana, where Sean worked for a year, 10 years ago.  Really looking forward to the time.