Mar 202017
 

We decided to stay at the lock another night so that we could spend our last full play day on the beach. We packed up all our snorkel gear, boogie boards, and wet suits. We headed south on Banana River in the dingy about 2 miles to a marina called Island Time Marina. Island Time Marina is undergoing a full and major renovation. It is to be completed by July, 2017, with showers, laundry, restroom, tiki bar and restaurant. It is situated about 3 blocks from the tourist strip in Cocoa Beach where the beach entrance is also. This marina had several boats with about a 3-4 foot draft. They have about 50 slips available.

We had a great day for the boogie boards. The surf was good with about 2-3 foot waves. The beach was busy and people watching is always in season. Cocoa Beach is known for its surf. This is the place to be for small and big surf in Florida. We noticed that the winds were getting big. We decided to leave and found that the Banana River had at least 4 foot waves. That would be too much for the dingy with our gear and us. We decided to hug the shore where there would be several homes and places to get to if needed. It proved to be the best of the worst situation. We found ourselves caught in water 1 foot deep and had to “portage” the dingy over. The waves were better near the shore but the 20 minute ride we had in the morning turned out to be about 2 hours to get home. We were very lucky that we left when we did because the winds picked up to gust of 35 mph. The last 600 feet was in open water to where we had Conductance well anchored. We watched as the waves grew and watched the weather. We had about 4 more hours of big winds so we watched a movie and put on the anchor alarm. The anchor alarm lets out a sound if the boat moves from its positioned anchor space.

Before the sun went down and in the big waves we watched another anchored buddy from Montreal when their anchor let go. We sounded the horn 5 times hoping they would hear but Scott figured they hit bottom on a shoal that was directly behind their boat. They quickly got on deck and reset their anchor. We settled in for an old time movie, Groundhog Day, and checked our position periodically. We were in really well considering the 35 mph gusts which started to taper off around 1 AM.

 Posted by at 9:39 PM