Bellatrix

Titusville, FL

30 October 2014

We spent 2 days in Daytona. We were cleaning up the boat doing laundry, and refilling water tanks. Working on a boat behind ours was Dave, who is a Battalion Commander in the Daytona Fire Department. He is restoring an 80’s vintage Post Sportfisher. He offered to show us some of the town and help us provision. He suggested we go to get dinner, after a very pleasant evening and conversation he paid the bill on the sly. More nice people. He drove us by the Speedway and told us a lot about Daytona.

Tuesday we walked about three miles of the beach. Thirsting for a beer and burger we found a Tiki Bar at a hotel. We met the owner who was a WWF wrestler and manager, his team was the Champagne King and the Heartbreakers (photo below). An interesting guy. The beach is not as well kept as Ocean City where they rake the beach often. In Daytona’s defense they did have an off shore storm that washed a lot of sea grass and moon jellies onto the beach. The water is clearer though.

After lunch we took a cab to Ponce de leon Inlet, Lighthouse, Jetty, and beach, very pretty. The cab ride cost us $25, we rode the bus back for $2. Live and learn.

Wednesday we motored along the Indian River, lovely, beautiful day, mid 80’s abundant sunshine, Florida as I imagined. Along this stretch we saw our first manatee, large, dark with a paddle tail. They don’t surface very much and at first all you see is a slight wake in the water then the tail. They are very large creatures and not terribly becoming. They are also known as seacows and sea elephants.

The water is really clear. Later I was on the bow polishing the bow rail with my feet hanging over both sides. I felt a splash, looked down and a dolphin was swimming right under the bow of the boat. He would surface blow air and go right back to keeping pace just under the bow, he swam there for about 5 minutes before heading off. It was amazing to just watch him swim.

Later we noticed a flash of light ascending from the ground to the south. It was an Atlas rocket carrying a new GPS satellite launched from Cape Canaveral. Cool to watch on a clear sky day. A day full of new experiences.

We anchored for the night near mile 880 of the ICW. We will pass Cape Canaveral today, anchor out again tonight, next stop will probably be Vero Beach.