The Indian River

The Indian River
28 20.81 N 080 42.85 W

I wrote several times before about how fond we are of Florida's Indian River.  It is a very safe, secure, pleasant and fun place for cruisers to hang out.  We got here yesterday in the late afternoon.  I was surprised at our fast progress.  We left Daytona late, at 1030, because we took time for a very pleasant breakfast with fellow cruisers Fergus and Carol.  However, a following wind and favorable tides more than made up for the late start.   By supper time we dropped the anchor near Titusville.

Our friend June challenged us to take advantage of the wind to make it all the way from Titusville to Vero Beach in just 7 hours.  I looked it up on the charts.  The distance is 65 nautical miles.  To do that we would have to average 9 knots of speed.  A 32 foot sailboat will do that about as readily as pigs grow wings.  Sorry June, we won't make it all the way there before sunset today.  We'll probably anchor for the night somewhere on the south side of a bridge and continue in the morning.

We did have thoughts of going to the Cocoa Beach Air Show today.  We're passing Cocoa as I write.  However it is a chilly grey day with lots of low clouds, making it a poor day for air shows.  Too bad.  In most cases we love air shows.

Has the dolphin population increased in Florida?  I doubt it, but it seems that way.  Both yesterday and today we have seen numerous large pods of dolphins in all directions.  About once per hour one of the pods decides to swim along beside us for a while.  I wish that we could have our granddaughters here with us.  They would be thrilled by the proximity of the dolphins.

By the way, Libby noted that we'll arrive in Vero 10 days earlier than last year.  Our north/south migrations hardly adhere to rigid schedules as you would expect.  Weather is a major variable in rates of progress.  The surprising thing is that despite the variability in overall migration schedule, our times at crossing the mid-point, Oriental North Carolina, are almost exactly the same fall after fall, spring after spring, year after year.   We don't plan it that way, it just happens.  It makes us feel kindred-ship with the geese, whose migrations are variable but  predictable.