We ended up staying at New Smyrna Beach Marina for one more day (Friday) as the winds really picked up, and making it to Fort Pierce Marina in three days would not be a problem. We had lunch in town which as usual meant we didn’t need much for dinner. We did manage to go for a bit of a walk in search of a few groceries – the major purchases were some cookies & kale – sublime to the ridiculous.
Our original plan was to anchor on Saturday night and stay at the Vero Beach Marina on Sunday night. We left two messages with the marina who apparently never answer their phone but supposedly do call you back. Not so in our case which turned out to be just fine. After the rotten weather on Thursday and Friday, the forecast for the next five days was good.
The most interesting part of Saturday was seeing the huge vehicle assembly building at the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral come more and more into view.
We saw a lot of manatees but since only a very small part of their snout (?) breaks the surface of the water to breathe, it was pointless to try taking pictures. We could see a change in the pattern on the water as one was about to surface.
The Haulover Canal is obviously a great place to fish as it was full of small fishing boats, many in the middle of the channel, they didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get out of the way. The picture is the view behind us as we came through the entrance to the canal. The banks of the canal also had lots of people fishing, probably especially busy as it was a beautiful sunny Saturday of the Thanksgiving weekend.
We anchored near Cocoa on Saturday night.