Titusville to Melbourne

We stopped in at the Titusville Municipal Marina for fuel.  At 3:45 we were the second customer of the day.  Business from the snowbirds has definitely dropped off this late in the year.  We were told a few weeks earlier we would have been cruising around behind a group of boats waiting for fuel.  The staff at the marina were friendly and helpful.  After picking up our mooring we took a longish dinghy ride into the dock.  We have found that it is very important to get off the boat and get exercise at every available opportunity.  The manager suggested that we might like to try Cracker Jacks, a local restaurant (no relation to the Carribean Jacks where we had lunch New Years Eve in Daytona Beach.)  I ran about a mile and a half around a park and back to Maryanne to give her directions as she walked toward where we hoped to find the restaurant.  We found it.

Drinks and dinner at Cracker Jacks came in at just under $30.  They told me my drink was strong and offered to put in a larger glass with more tonic -- so I guess I got 2 drinks for my money.  The food was very good.  I couldn't resist a picture of the view outside.

The view outside Cracker Jacks

From our vantage point we could see our boat on the mooring about a half mile away.

The forecast for tomorrow is high winds in the afternoon 25 knots and higher with 30 knot winds overnight and gale force gusts.  We want to make progress south ahead of the high winds.  If we don't make it to our marina in time the wind could make docking very difficult.  Anchoring out in gale force winds is loud, uncomfortable, worrisome, and NOT conducive to a good night's sleep - so if we go we will aim for a well protected marina.

Monday:  We decided to go for it.  Winds never topped 18 knots, our cruising speed was close to 7 knots so we traveled the 40 miles in 5 1/2 hours.  We are currently tied up at the Melbourne Harbor Marina.  The manager of the marina assured us that a 6 foot draft vessel had come into the marina from the ICW today so we didn't need to be too concerned about our depth finder alarm.  The alarm set for 5 feet did go off a few times but we cleared the bottom.  The manager further assured us that the berth he had for us had just been vacated by a vessel with a 5 1/2 foot draft.  As the depth finder alarm chirped I very slowly drifted toward our berth.  Almost imperceptibly our boat slowed and stopped before the bow entered the slip.  We were aground.  OK, said the manager, head to the north end of the fuel dock and swing wide to enter the slip.  We did just that.  I came in slowly, more than a little bit apprehensive about  trying to grab the pilings on either side of our stern.  We came in gently.  As he held the bow from the finger pier I dropped a line over one piling and pushed as far and hard as I could to reach the piling on the opposite side to drop another stern line over it.  With his instructions we were able to orient the boat close to the dock but not touching it.  Lines went from our boat to the four corners of our berth.  With a spring line attached amidships we were successfully berthed - our first time ever using pilings on our stern.

This is one of our neighbors.  Maryanne's next boat might look
like this.

We took a nice walk along a waterside park and up into the downtown area of Melbourne.  Melbourne struck me as having a pretty high density of restaurants.  It looked like this could be a busy place earlier in the season.

We passed this guy on our waterside walk

Despite the hundreds of signs warning us to avoid hitting
manatees these are the only ones we have seen for sure.