Jan 3

The day after a twenty-mile day was not surprisingly a short one. By the time we had awoken from a long sleep and moved out of our hotel it was nearly 11:00. It occurred to me that by this time yesterday one bridge had disappeared. And we were not close to being on the water yet! Before going to launch we went to Melbourne to check in to motel near where the send off would take place on Monday. By the time we had the boat in the water at the Tim Wellen Park in Cocoa it was after 2:00! Needless to say this was to be a short row.

We left the landing and headed into choppy water with a headwind and many non parallel wakes causing impossible conditions for the first half mile. Heading across the lagoon to the more protected eastern shore along Merritt Island we found flatter water and the GPS showed we were maintaining about 3.7 mph in spite of the headwind. But my energy level was not there. A small, uninhabited island with a beach was coming up and I rowed to it and pulled up on a sandy spit and got out. I guzzled a quart of Gatorade and Heather fed me several triscuits with cheese. Within a half hour I recovered and felt much better. I must have been dehydrated and hungry. Starting up again I realized that there was absolutely no chance of making the destination we had selected 12 miles south.

Rowing along the shore of Merritt Island it seemed that there were hundreds of docks, some with large fancy boats moored there, large fancy homes behind them, but not one person in sight to enjoy this entire splendor. We looked for someone to ask if it might be possible to take our boat out at their place and carry it to the road. I didn’t really want to do that but it seemed the only way we were to get off the water before it got dark. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a small opening in the seawall leading into a small marina. I rowed in and asked a fellow who was cleaning his boat if there might be a place to take out. He suggested that we talk to Ed, the owner, who shortly appeared from his house. After telling him our story and admitting that I was too tired to row another ten miles to the public landing, he nicely said we could tie the boat up and leave it in the empty slip he had.

Getting out of a boat that is at sea level when the dock is about 4 feet above requires a special skill, or maybe a special desire. Heather went first and got one leg up and with a roll managed the ascent. Then tying the bowline to a post on the front end of the slip and two stern lines to the pier, we got everything out of the boat and left her there for the night. The shores of the ICW seem to be totally devoid of any floats or low-lying docks. There are no dinghies because everyone ties up at piers instead of anchoring.

I called the fellow who had driven me to Titusville the day before and he eventually came to pick me up and take me back to Tim Wellen Park. On the way he asked me how far we were going. When I said we hoped to make Key Largo by the end of the month, he wondered why we couldn’t just go to Key Largo in the car, camp there and relax. I did not attempt to convince him that we were really sane. Maybe I wasn’t sure.