December 16 - 18 -- Two More Lay Days in Titusville and Passage to Dragon Point Anchorage -- 30.9 Miles

Titusville is a good place to leave one's boat for the Christmas holidays as our friends on Autumn Borne and Seeker are doing. But it is also a sightseeing launch pad. Our first lay day was devoted to JFK Space center on Cape Canaveral, on Merritt Island, which forms the eastern shore of the Indian River (think of boxes of fruit from Florida) and was the subject of my prior post.
Our second lay day was mostly errands: Post office, bank, pet food store, laundry, and supermarket. But we also visited the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. It has a one lane unpaved loop road about three feet above sea level in a very circuitous path  about 7.5 miles long with about fifteen stops for viewing wildlife, mostly birds. But there are alligators there too and the book says there are small mammals as well and their droppings attest to it. It is a birder's paradise and made me wish I was a birder, because there are so many species.

t flies but it's not a bird.

Out in the middle of nowhere, there is an additional 5 mile hiking loop further than the road goes. I walked about half a mile and back while Lene waited. The wet lands and marshes have a few high spots, about three feet high, and the road simply connected them. The place is not completely natural but rather carefully managed to let seawater in,or out, to preserve ideal depths for different species. I took a lot of pictures but few came out well. Another paved road takes you to Playalinda (pretty beach in Spanish) Beach but we ran out of time.

And our last lay day was for the Universal theme parks in Orlando. Lene wanted this and I think she has gotten roller coasters out of her system. It was mostly monster rides but also a lot of inside rides that are intended to be scary.  For the giant ones a person must check all things that could fly away with the violent shaking of one's body: bags, hats, glasses, phones, cameras, wallets, change etc. They have rooms with walls of lockers that use your fingerprint to lock and unlock them. These areas need to be enlarged a bit. They have attendants to keep things moving when the system fails. The locker areas are the only thing in the park that needs to be expanded. I did not take pictures except these of Lene in chartreuse top with colossal structures.

We were lucky it was not Christmas week when the crowds would be three times as large. Several rides said that the line was 45 minutes, but in fact the times were shorter than that. And they keep you moving and entertained while waiting.  There are two separate parks with different rides in each, though both had Harry Potter rides and villages (One London and the other the suburban school). We were not close followers of the HP phenomenon but enjoyed it anyway. One mistake was drinking a "butter beer:" it looks like a beer with a head, but it is all cream and butterscotch and sweeter than is good for anyone's health. All told, we went on about a dozen rides or shows during the 8.5 hours we were in the park. Most rides and shows are based on Universal's action thriller or cartoon characters. They have done a very good job with some of the shows. The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad was in a huge amphitheater with acrobats, diving, and explosives. A Neptune show was all large excellent computer animation and pyrotechnics. These two had a watery theme as did two rides that we skipped because the fun is getting drenched. Both of the HP rides and several others put you in cars which move along a track, swivel on center and tilt and shake in myriad ways while 3D computer animations confront you. Very clever use of burning hot big flames -- you could feel the heat. Similarly, when an aquatic villain loomed out there was a spray of real water -- Aldous Huxley's "The Feelies" have arrived. An old fashioned looking railroad takes you from the HP area of one park to the other, with attendants in each area appropriately costumed. But the view out the window of the train would be of the back sides of  the various rides so instead of they put us, six in a small cabin, on one side of the train and amused us two ways during the short ride. For one thing, silhouettes of HP characters were made to appear in cloudy silhouette in the train's corridor, nattering about aspects of the plot. On the other side, a computer animated view of the English scene was shown moving past as if you were traveling by train in England. Clever. And the park is very expensive: $135 per person plus $17 to park the car. And merchandising everywhere. (for an additional $50 per person you can get an express pass which gives you the right to get on a separate shorter line to wait for the rides and shows. Not needed the day we visited.) We had dinner back in Titusville at Chops -- good food at a reasonable price.
On passage day, breakfasting out (third day in a row), returning the rental car, showering, raising the dink and fueling led to a 10:45 departure for Dragon Point (There was a big statue of a dragon here but it has disintegrated). It is the southern pointy tip of Merritt Island. No wind to speak of so; motoring all the way. At the Point we hooked a left into the Banana River, on the eastern side of that island, and dropped the hook a couple of hundred yards up that river in 17 feet of water at high tide with 100 feet of snubbed chain, for a quiet evening aboard. We had thought to stop and anchor half way in Cocoa FL,but skipped it this time. I have stopped reporting dolphins because they are with us every day.