Melbourne to Titusville

We left our anchorage heading into a 15-20 mph northerly wind a 9:00. With the temperature in the upper 50's we were bundled up for another cold bumpy day covering about 40 miles. We are now tied to a mooring ball at the city marina hoping to see a rocket launch on Saturday (3/18). Our plans are to stay here on the ball until Monday (3/20) when we'll set sail for Loggerhead Marina at Daytona Beach. We modified our plan for catching the ball from our Sarasota attempt, rather than grabbing it from the bow we tied a 50 ft line to the bow and walked it back to the lower aft deck where Kim could reach the ball. Well, it's not actually the ball she grabs but a short line with an eyelet that she runs our line through. She then handed the line to me on the upper deck and I walked it back to the bow and tied off.
Some of the pictures show thick smoke off in the distance, we believe this to be sugar cane fields burning as was witnessed on the Okeechobee Waterway.

Kim’s Korner:
It’s amazing how many derelict boats we’ve seen along our journey. The one in my picture has been spray painted saying it was “OK” – I don’t really know what that means but I’m guessing that the USCG has investigated, we were told that many of these boats were damaged from a hurricane. I’ve also been amazed at the number of calls we hear over the VHF to the USCG for help – boat went aground, sinking boat, sinking Seadoo, man overboard, and several boats that appear to be abandoned which of course leads you to wonder if someone went overboard. I hope we never have to make one of those calls.
It’s neat being able to see Cape Canaveral from our mooring ball. Just being here makes me think of my Aunt Corky and Uncle Ed. 😊  Ed was an aeronautical engineer working for Boeing and worked at the Cape for many years. I remember visiting them here as a child but never witnessed a launch before.

Pictures!