Jan. 2

We awoke to a calm and clear perfect rowing day. After an instant oatmeal breakfast in our hotel room we packed lunch and headed out to put the boat back in the water where we took it out on the beach off the causeway in Titusville. The water was perfectly flat.

A fellow a short way down the beach had an ultra light plane attached to a Zodiac and started to give rides to several people as we got the boat ready. The rig flew very well and could land extremely slowly. I offered to send Heather up for a ride but she declined saying she preferred to go for a ride with me in our boat. That we did.

Rounding the point and heading through the bridge near where we put in we headed due south. The wind was reported to be out of the north, if any, and I watched the bridge slip away into the distance as I rowed for about an hour and a half without a rest. Several large vessels passed but the wakes were manageable without stopping. My course was as straight and long as I have ever rowed. I could see my puddles disappearing into a vanishing point the whole way to the next bridge seven miles down the Indian River Lagoon. Then another bridge could barely be seen about six more miles south.

I realized that I had watched the first disappear below the horizon. Perhaps I could make this second one disappear also. There is something intriguing about watching the earth curve and drop things out of sight when one is rowing. I felt small but realized that it was the power of my rowing that pushed that bridge away and out of sight. The second did as well. We had been through three bridges by 1:00 p.m. The first possible take out place had passed and the next would be ramp 17 on the chart that looked to be just after the next bridge about 3 miles further. Heather said that the GPS showed we had already covered 14 miles.

My blisters were still not bad so we were committed to making it to ramp 17. Well, we passed the fourth bridge and started looking for the ramp but found nothing. Finally we asked a fisherman in a boat where it was and he pointed back a mile. The next was in Cocoa just past yet another bridge about three miles further. I decided that going back was not in my vocabulary so we needed to go to Cocoa. Wind had now come up from the East across our course, which made it necessary to pull harder on my starboard oar. This started to tear at the blisters on that hand and made the last two miles very unpleasant compared with the rest of the row. As we made the last approach to the Cocoa ramp Heather announced that we had just past 20 miles for the day. This being more than our first two days combined I was happy that I had proved that twenty-mile days could be achieved. My chances of reaching Key Largo before the end of the month seem to be looking better. Exhausted and with right leg cramping I landed and we hauled the boat out at a nice park in the middle of Cocoa.

I started to walk into town to see if I could find a ride back to Titusville to get the car. Seeing no chance without hiring a taxi I found a shopkeeper who gave me the name of a friend of his who ran a taxi service. I called him and two hours later was back to pick up poor Heather sitting by the boat reading and by then a bit chilly.