Today we passed the John F Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. There is going to be a launch in about 2 weeks. So I scanned the horizon with binoculars and saw the rocket in place already. I'm sure they have plenty of preparations to do. It would have been quite an experience to watch the launch from our boat.
About 11:30 we saw a lightning bolt out ahead of us. So we took all our hand held electronics and put them in the microwave. A metal box is supposed to protect them if you are hit by lightning.
Today I put about 8 CD's in our stereo. It really helped the time pass. When we had a good view of the Space Center, Elton John's "Rocket Man" came on. Had to laugh at that.
We also listened to Kenny Chesney. I hadn't really listened to the words of this song before, but it hit home today.
"Soal of a Sailor"
I was born a son of the sea
I can't be still, I can't be tied
The only time I feel alive is
When the wind fills my sail
Riding on a lifelong swell
Let my heart take me where it wants to go
That's the soul of a sailor, the soul of a sailor
We passed under a draw bridge where the bridge tender told us to go slow because there were manatees in the area an area. We saw their tails flipping at the surface. But by the time we reached them they had gone under water, so no photos today.
We anchored at New Smyrna Beach just off the ICW about 6:00pm. While checking out the depths to decide exactly where to anchor, our keel touched bottom and the boat stopped. Dave was able to back it off of the sandbar that we hit. We then moved a little further south and anchored. We ate dinner in the cockpit, just leftovers. Once inside the boat, we heard a noise from the anchor chain and went out to investigate. Here is the technical explanation: the snubber came off the rode which caused the chain to jump off of the windless gypsy. That's what made the noise. So- the anchor is attached to a chain (rode) and the snubber is a line that makes a bridle coming from both sides of the bow and attaches to the chain. It take the pressure off of the windless, which is the mechanical device that raises and lowers the anchor. The gypsy is a channel that grabs the chain or rope, whichever you are using. Here is the reason: the wind was from the south, so that is the way we point our bow when anchoring. But we were in a river that had a current running the opposite direction and turned our boat 180 degrees. We decided to reset the anchor. This time we faced the boat west to set the anchor, we swung 180 degrees and faced the east and set it again. We had a feeling we weren't done for the night.
We both showered and got ready for bed. We realized that we had left a screen off of the hatch above our bed and put it in place before getting into bed. Well it wasn't long before both of us were swatting and scratching. We turned on the lights and there were hundreds of little bugs in the boat. We call them No See'ms. They bite, but don't leave any marks. We quickly closed up all the hatches and started our generator so we could run the air conditioning all night. We then spent the next hour trying to kill the litter buggers. Finally, we felt comfortable enough to sleep. I actually felt a little sea sick from looking up at the ceiling so long with a little rocking motion of the boat.
What a night: we got stuck, had to reset anchor and had bugs biting us. Always and adventure.
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| The Falcon 9 rocket is next to a red tower. Next launch is scheduled for 6-11-14 |
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| JKF Space Center |
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