Titusville

1011 nm   N28 37.337  W080 48.135

Today's plan was 42 nm to Titusville.  We would need to stop at the Titusville marina for fuel and a pumpout before finding an anchorage.

Another early start, on our way by 6:45am.  We actually beat Pearl this time!  But no matter.  They soon overtook and passed us.

The current and wind was again in our favor, and we did 6 knots or better the whole way.  We got in so early, that we could have continued on as far as Cocoa if we had wanted.    Then things got "interesting" as we went into Titusville Marina.

The fuel dock and pumpout were located on two different T-heads, so that meant docking the boat twice.  But what was really bad was that the fuel dock was partially exposed to their inlet, and the pumpout dock was fully exposed, and the 14 knot north wind was driving large chop with whitecaps almost directly into the inlet!

The dock had no rubber fendering, and I could see from the abraded condition of the pilings that this wind was not an unusual occurrence.  We got onto the fuel dock without incident, but had to quickly force one of our fenders between us and the piling.  It was crushed almost flat, but it held.

Once fueled, we had a difficult time getting off the dock.  The wind was keeping us pinned to it.  Several dockhands kept fending our bow off as I tried to power away, but our port stern kept rubbing the dock, threatening to bend the frame holding the solar panels and windgen.  I managed to fend off enough to avoid damage, but that left me with another dilemma.  In order to keep the stern off the dock until we were clear of it, I had to turn hard to port to make the stern swing out.  This worked, but left us aimed directly at the boat docked on the inside of the next T-head!  As soon as my stern was clear, I turned hard to starboard and gave it full throttle.  This scooted our stern around and took us clear of the next T-head, where we needed to do the whole process over to get a pumpout!

( I later learned the the boat we had been aimed at was S/V Our Log,  whom we had met in Bimini 2 years ago, and had been playing leapfrog with on this trip!)

It took two passes to safely get on the pumpout dock, and the conditions were even worse.  After the pumpout, I had a discussion with the dockmaster.  We decided the best bet would be to back off of the T-head, and use a cleated-off stern line with the engine in reverse.  This would spin us around the outer piling until out bow was directly into the wind, allowing us to power forward cleanly.

And it worked like a charm!  Fairly slow and completely controlled.  As soon as we were bow to the wind, I signaled him and put it in forward.  He uncleated the line and tossed it aboard so we wouldn't wrap it on our prop.  His timing was flawless.  He really knows his stuff!  

And away we went.  I had to give it a lot of throttle to initially overcome the wind and chop, but once we were moving, everything was fine.

Note to future self:  Never use Titusville Marina when the wind is from the North!!

Our next challenge was choice of anchorage.  Normally, I would have backtracked 1 mile North to the NASA railway bridge, and anchored in the lee of the causeway on the SW side.  This would be well protected from North winds, and is an excellent spot we have used twice before.    But Titusville is where we would part ways with Pearl,  as they needed to make arrangements to be hauled so they could complete some bottom work.   So they were anchored just south of the mooring field and within an easy dinghy ride in.  That location is completely exposed to the North, and would be a bumpy overnight.  But we wanted to have them over for one last round of sundowners, so that's where we anchored.

The sunset was great, and we had Dark & Stormys all around.

Sunset Over Titusville

Another milestone! Today we passed the 1000 nm mark!

Life is good.