Jan. 21:

I woke at 5:30 and lay wondering if the wind was still howling. I began to think about the pattern we had experienced with the cold fronts that had reached Florida while we were here. It seemed that the strong winds did not last more than a day and then there was calm. Three fronts had come down from the frigid north so far and we had been forced off the water three days by wind. So I jumped out of bed and looked at the Accuweather site for Daytona Beach that gives an hourly prediction of wind direction and velocity. I have found it to be very accurate. It showed only 1-2 mile an hour winds for much of the day from the North. We hastened to pack up and get started. I would need to be off the water at 1:30 for a conference call meeting and then we needed to drive to Atlanta to attend a TOTO National Sales Meeting. If the long term forecast for the weekend and the beginning of the following week does not look favorable when we are in Atlanta, we might need to decide to not return from Atlanta but head directly to the frozen north.

We put the boat in the water at the Port Orange Bridge and I was rowing by 8:30. There was a strong tidal rip working against me for the first mile that went by slowly as a result.

The water was flat and I was determined to maximize the mileage during the next 5 hours just in case this might be the last row of the trip. If the current were favorable I should have been averaging about 6 miles an hour. But it was not. We chose some alternate routes to following the ICW channel. One was Smyrna Creek that turned out to be a marvelous curving channel through mangroves and other vegetation. We were alone in a bird sanctuary filled with all kinds of shore birds. Dolphins were fishing and pelicans followed them, waiting to pick up their scraps or catch the fish that were forced to jump out of the water when being chased. We finally ended up at the end of a canal that led back out to the ICW. Total mileage on the GPS odometer was much greater than the direct mileage from our starting waypoint. We had traveled an intestinal route through the guts of the Florida environment we like the best.

At the end of the canal we turned south through the Smyrna Beach Bridge and down the west side of the river to the Mennard May park in Edgewater. We had added over 15 miles to our total trip mileage and another short day would close the gap left to get to the WSEG boat ramp where we had started on New Year’s Eve.

During my last few strokes I could feel a premonition that they were probably my last strokes until summer. My emotions were torn apart by this possible premature end to our rowing odyssey. I did not want to stop.

I have felt better and better each day and, like a small boy, I have difficulty stopping when I am enjoying myself so much. It seems like the last three weeks have vanished without my being aware of the time passing. Perhaps I will have to read the log to be sure that it really happened. It is very hard to believe that we have left 321.5 miles of water astern during this short three weeks. Considering the three weather days taken it has only been 18 days!