Marineland Marina

We dropped the lines at 830a and moved out on a lovely day.  Not surprising that our first bridge was a color we see a lot in Florida....Pink!

The chart said it was 23 feet so the Captain let the mast down....up close it sure looked lower.

But we made it just fine.

This lighthouse at the inlet between New Smyrna & the town of Port Orange was very familiar to us.  Years ago both Walter and I had flown small planes out of the New Smyrna airport and this lighthouse would help us line up the plane for the landing.

This plane was lining up as we cruised by....Some things never change.

The next bridge was suppose to be 21 feet, we are 17' 1” with the mast down, again should be no problem. Walter has often told others wanting to do this trip that the two most important things on the bridge are the Chart Plotter AND his binoculars! So using binoculars the Captain noticed the “story board” (a sign that tells the actual height of the top of the water to the underside of the bridge) and it said 16 feet!....so we called the bridge tender and he quickly opened it for us.

It was hard to believe how much the beaches along the way today had grown up... when we lived here there were no high rise condos and office buildings!

The next bridge was really pretty with sea shell decorations on top and the bottom of each of the bridge support columns were beautifully painted.

Some good advertisement here....a fishing boat parked along side a sea food restaurant on the dock....hummm FRESH fish!

Lots of condos along the Atlantic ICW.

This was an ocean going tug boat at one time...now seemed to be a home for someone...we hoped it was sitting on the bottom cause it looked like it might rust out soon and sink.

This marina had two house boats docked in slips...two story pink one and the green one.

Some houses we passed.  This house and boat house had matching tile roofs.

It seems pink and aqua are the favorite Florida colors.

By the time we arrived at our marina the wind had really picked up blowing steady at 15 knots with gusts close to 30 knots.....we were told to hug the reds (markers) as we put Miss gg into the channel leading to our dock......lots of shallow water just out of the channel here...wind was NOT helping!  Then began a wrestling match between the wind and dock crew with the Captain doing everything he could to control the boat along with me throwing lines.  When we still couldn't get close enough...wind blowing us off dock worse than we had ever experienced....it was decided that we should turn the boat. The Captain moved fast and this time we beat the wind and had her tied on a face dock before we could be blown too far off again.  

We didn't feel so bad when we then witnessed another trawler trying to dock in a slip across from us...they tried 4 or 5 times and gave up and went to a face dock......no matter how much experience you had the wind made docking close to impossible today!

This is a nice place, dockage is cheap.....and very popular lately...could that be because it is getting cold again up north?  Earlier we asked to stay here several days and it was doubtful they would have space but tonight we have confirmed one week stay.  Hopefully, Spring will come to North Carolina while we wait here...although cooler weather & rain is also forecast for here........com' on sunshine!