Daytona Beach, Florida 26th June 2016 29:14.194N 081:01.481W
Five Islands
John & Sue
Fri 5 Aug 2016 13:51
| Heading north to anchor overnight at Daytona Beach. The Haulover Canal is a narrow channel leading from the Indian River into Mosquito Lagoon. There is a bascule opening bridge to go through. We called several times on CH9 VHF with no response from the bridge operator. we had slowed right down and did not want to have to circle around until he answered or we located the phone number for the bridge. Numerous small fishing boats had moved out of the channel to allow us to pass, so room was at a premium. Just as we were becoming annoyed the bridge begins to raise. It was only after we had passed and got back on the radio to thank him for the opening that the bridge operator decided to talk to us and wished us a good day. I’m thinking that by standing on the deck and waving cheerfully (whilst muttering under my breath) it may have encouraged him to converse with us. We have only encountered this twice in our travels up the ICW, the majority of the bridge tenders have been great. Mosquito Lagoon should be called ‘Midgy’ Lagoon. As soon as we entered i was eaten alive, so continued to scratch for several days afterwards. Todays scenery was a mixture of open waterways with islands and fisherman and narrow rivers with fairly strong currents.    Birds and dolphins aplenty. This Osprey had just caught lunch.  A pink Spoonbill Ibis. A bit far away for my lens but really pretty colour. We were told that they are this colour due to the crustaceans they eat.  Just after exiting the lagoon we came into an area of fishing camps with holiday houses and caravans all along the shore. This was not where the ultra rich had their weekenders.  The opening bridge at New Smyrna. The current here was very strong and continued until we turned back into the smaller creek/water way which took us inland of the Ponce de Leon Inlet We had a dry squall to 30kts come through then about an hour later rain from the edge of another squall.  Finding a spot to anchor in Daytona Beach was a bit challenging. The channel for the ICW is edged by fairly shallow water and where there was enough depth to anchor there were other boats there or were designated cable crossing areas. Once we had the anchor down just off the main channel we spent a still evening being rocked by the occasional passing boat.  The lights of the last 2 bridges we had passed under made a pretty backdrop for this anchor spot.  |