Space Coast

We are under way northbound through the Mosquito Lagoon, with the Nasa Vehicle Assembly Building and the rest of Cape Canaveral receding behind us. We are moving at a more leisurely pace now, and tonight we expect to be in the New Smyrna Beach to Ponce Inlet area.

As predicted, we dropped the hook in Eau Gallie right at 6pm Monday, in a familiar spot off the public library (map). It was still in the neighborhood of 90°, and as soon as we were settled we splashed the tender to head ashore. Eau Gallie, which is actually a neighborhood of Melbourne, has a nice dinghy dock attached to the fishing pier, and that's where we landed.

While Melbourne has closed most of its recreation facilities, including erecting fencing around playgrounds, fishing is still a permitted activity, and the pier was busy. And I am compelled to say: people here Do. Not. Get. It. We observed no social distancing. No one was wearing a mask. From the pier alone, you would be hard pressed to tell there was a pandemic at all.

We had to walk past several folks to get off the dock, and no one made room -- we gave everyone as wide a berth as we could. We had brought our masks and gloves for the inevitable interaction at the restaurant, but had not thought it would be necessary to don them before landing the tender. Since they serve as signalling devices as much as protective ones, we'll be donning them next time we need to land anywhere that people are congregating.



Vector at anchor off Eau Gallie, from the park behind the library.

The adjacent library was closed, but they had set a table outside with stacks of income tax forms for those who needed them. We walked up the street to US-1 and the Italian joint, San Remo, to pick up carry-out. No one we passed seemed interested in distancing themselves, which had us walking in the street periodically, and the restaurateur was not wearing any PPE. I had the distinct impression that people here are doing the bare minimum required to comply with the directive, and then only because there is a directive, not because they are at all concerned.

We carried our food back to the little park next to the art museum to eat. At least there were signs on the tables and benches telling people to maintain 6' spacing. We had the whole park to ourselves. We sat down to eat just at sunset, and it was not only tolerable but even pleasant outside in the shade. Lacking groceries, we once again purchased an extra salad with dinner.

After returning to Vector we ran the generator and air conditioning briefly to get the rest of the heat out of the boat, and then we were able to just open everything up for the night. We would have decked the tender, except we found enough recycling ashore that I decided to return in the cool of the morning and get our two months' backlog of recyclables off the boat. Louise came with me for a short walk.

I plotted a course to Titusville and we weighed anchor after decking the tender. Under way I pulled up the Cape Canaveral launch calendar; SpaceX had been scheduled to launch a Falcon-9 tomorrow from SLC-40. That launch had been postponed, but no inkling of the new date had been posted. If we thought it was imminent, we would have turned down the barge canal to the Banana River, but with nothing posted, we opted to continue to Titusville until we had more news.

We dropped the hook in Titusville south of the causeway (map). In more normal times, we would have anchored quite a bit south, in order to tender ashore for Mexican food at El Leoncito. We would have found a way to do that notwithstanding the fact that the nearby docks, which we used the last time we did this, have been destroyed.


In the park where we ate our dinner is the world's nicest cornhole game. The bean bags are in the box (yes, we washed our hands).

We had a nice dinner on the aft deck, where our entertainment for the evening was watching the numerous people fishing from the pier some 400' away. Once again, neither social distancing nor PPE were the norm. We even saw a half-dozen folks just sitting in camp chairs by the water, near the parking lot, having a meet-up. To be fair, they had spaced themselves out about 6' apart, but this sort of gathering was not what was intended by a fishing exemption.

Our hope was to be able to tender ashore at Space View Park and walk the mile to the grocery this morning. But winds clocked around to the south overnight, and the fetch made the anchorage very rough. We decided instead to go another day without fresh food items.

You may recall that I said Titusville might be a stopping option for us. The municipal marina is open for fuel, and they are selling mooring balls. But they are not permitting any landing or going ashore, which makes them suitable only for a short overnight stop. We might have taken a ball for a few nights if the rocket launch was going to happen, but this morning I learned it will be a full week at the earliest, and that's too long to wait. As we passed this morning, we noted the mooring field is as empty as we have ever seen it.

Even though it was a little bumpy in the anchorage, it was a comfortable temperature this morning to just have the boat open, and we opted to relax, and get underway later in the day when we would want the air conditioning that the engine alternator could provide. We had a relaxing morning until two giant motor yachts came by on full plane, knocking things off the counters. It didn't do any wonders for the adjacent private marina, either. I gave them an earful; the response: don't anchor in a "planing area" (no such thing). Karma will catch up to them.


The other end. No box here, but still four cup holders!

We got under way soon after, which means we'll get to the end of our route around 3:30 or 4:00, still in the heat of the afternoon. We're hoping the forecast rain will cool things down a bit. We're also hoping to get enough of a dry window in the morning to finally get ashore for groceries, something we have not managed to do since clearing back in to the US. Ironically, it had been easier to get them in the Bahamas.

Speaking of which, as of yesterday, that is no longer true. The Bahamas finally released their protocol for visiting yachts during the pandemic, and the upshot is that boats can not move at all unless departing directly, and no one may get off a boat for any reason whatsoever; needed supplies must be delivered. Departure transit plans must be pre-approved in writing by the government. We are glad to have departed when we did.

I've gotten a lot of feedback on my last post, and perhaps it is in order to clarify a few things. For starters: we're fine. There is nothing we need at the moment, all is well on board -- even the cat -- and we have numerous options moving forward. My intent was just to share a little with our readers how life on the water in these times presents its own challenges, and also to shed some light on why we keep moving when the world seems to have come to a standstill.

We now have enough confidence in the Jacksonville area as our interim sheltering location (before continuing north out of the hurricane box) that I ordered the replacement watermaker pump yesterday for delivery to our mail drop in Green Cove Springs, and we're stretching the water supply and nursing the batteries until we can get to the municipal dock there for those necessities. At some level, Green Cove Springs is "home," inasmuch as we get our mail there, register our vehicles and vessels there, and vote there, so this seems somehow appropriate.

There are only two more inlets between here and Jacksonville. We'll pass Ponce Inlet tomorrow, with no outside weather in the foreseeable future. And St. Augustine Inlet is too close to Jacksonville to make an outside run worthwhile. So at this point it appears we will be running the ditch the rest of the way. That means we'll also need a pumpout, and I have my fingers crossed that the equipment is still working at Jacksonville.