Post #47: Nine Bridges and a Lagoon

Thursday, November 19, 2020

OK, so my memory of places I visited 50 years ago may not always be accurate but I know that it will be a long time before I forget this day.

We had to get under or through NINE bridges today, three of which read less than 63.5’ clearance on their height boards.  We were holding our breath and praying on those three, believe me. It was the most anxiety-producing day so far.  Little did we know what was to come.

Our personal race through Daytona began at 9:42 a.m. at the lowest point of low tide and the beginning of the course looked like this with the first four bridges in sight:

We were feeling quite confident as we continued on our way to the Ponce de Leon inlet, past modest homes, trailer park villages, and fishing camps.  This guy even had his faithful black lab on board to help him catch some fish:

Soon we could see the iconic red Ponce de Leon lighthouse near New Smyrna Beach.

Then it was time to go under bridge #7 and turn into Mosquito Lagoon.  It is an open, shallow expanse of water that is an ideal fishing ground for sport and commercial fishermen as well as pelicans, especially when it is calm.  Here are two snapshots of our charts which may help to show how different this area is compared to most of our travels the past few weeks. Most of the time we have nearby shore on both sides. The two charts shown are at the same scale so you get an idea of how narrow our channel is (the dotted line), even when traveling across a huge lagoon.  If we deviate from the channel, there’s only 1-3 feet of water.  And we need 5’4”.

Mosquito Lagoon did not live up to its name—the good news was there were no mosquitos.  The bad news was that it was not the calm, peaceful body of water one might expect from its nomenclature.

When we passed by the “N” in “Lagoon” on the second photo, David happened to be down below and I was at the helm.  Suddenly a fierce squall came to life, with sustained winds of 25 knots, slashing rainfall, and gusts to 35 knots! The shallow water was whipped up by the winds from the Atlantic and seas built to 3-foot waves in what seemed like an instant. The waves crashed over our bow and sprayed the dodger “windows,” making us wish we had some sort of windshield wiper. I quickly tried to “dump some air” out of our headsail by easing the sheet as the boat heeled to starboard. I called out for David to come help as we needed to haul that sail in as quickly as possible to keep it from flailing around.  Thank goodness we had both been in similar situations together and knew what to do but it was a momentarily harrowing experience. Once it had settled down, I took this video:

Some people come to Orlando to experience the Tower of Terror amusement ride at Disney.  I’ve had enough moments of “terror” today, thank you very much.  Fortunately, the squall moved on as quickly as it appeared and I took three deep breaths (as my father had taught me) and we focused on getting to Titusville before dark.

The closer we got, the clearer became the view of Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center.  We could see the launch pad for the next SpaceX adventure!  When David and I were in elementary school, televisions were rolled into the classrooms so we could witness the launches of the Gemini and Apollo missions.  Astronauts were held up as almost god-like heroes and even our math, science, and phys. ed. classes were recalibrated to prepare us to help win the Space Race.  What a thrill it will be to see a launch close up while we are staying at Cocoa for six weeks!

Finally, we took a sharp right and went through the Haulover Canal, so relieved to be out of the “lagoon.” The world changed again as we were greeted by dolphins, cormorants, Great Blue and white herons, a “flamboyance” of flamingos,  scores of pelicans and gulls all swirling about, skimming the water and seemingly unperturbed by our presence. Small fishing skows and kayakers plied the waters and the bascule bridge opened on request. Sigh.

Only one more bridge to go through, NASA’s  Railway Bridge which, fortunately is almost always in an open position.

Finally, finally, we were past all those bridges, safely tied to a mooring ball in Titusville Marina and the day was done.

I don’t think I need to tell you that we both fell soundly asleep by 8:30.  One more day to Cocoa Village Marina.