Day 201: Sunday, March 24, 2013
Port to Port: Titusville, Florida
Underway: 0:00 am Motor Off: 0:00 pm Miles Traveled: 0 Stayed At: Mooring
Mile to Mile: After “surprising” my Mom last night, we have a leisurely day planned today – a mix of small projects (always projects), eating and visiting. I got going early and made a stop at Walmart to get a wrench and some spray to clean the carb on the dinghy motor. When I got back to Elena’s apartment building, I sat on the sidewalk and disassembled, cleaned and reassembled the carb while waiting for everyone to get up and ready to go to brunch. We decided the brunch at Golden Corral would be fun – lots of choices and no rush to leave. (I have no idea how they make any money – prime rib, steak, shrimp, made-to-order omeletts, and 20 different desert items all for $10 or so.)
After brunch, we returned to the apartment and I multitasked listening to the chit-chat while catching up the blog, backing up some of the newer pictures onto DVD’s (to send home), and using the high speed internet to the fullest advantage. After a quick but wonderful visit (thanks Elena), we headed back across Florida to Titusville. We were a little apprehensive though since we saw on the news that a large storm system was moving across the state (at 55 mph) straight for Titusville. The roads were a little wet but traffic was light and we only had a few sprinkles. About 30 miles from the marina, though, we started to see some tree damage – a little at first – but then there were a couple places where it looked like a strong downburst had pushed the trees over on both sides of the road – oh, oh!
Except for some trees down and sign damage, the marina faired okay. The winds in the mooring field were clocked at 55 mph and at Cape Canaveral across the water 75 mph gusts were recorded. Except for a few flipped dinghies (and dunked motors), everything was okay. Aurora faired just fine on the mooring – we would have been scared —-less had we been onboard. A really close call and a good learning experience – don’t leave anything in your dinghy during a big blow and maybe remove the motor too.
I tried getting the dinghy started but it still wouldn’t stay going so we ended up paddling all the way to Aurora. Tomorrow we will probably go into a slip for a day or two to recharge the batteries and get the dinghy motor working again. What a nice way to spend Day 200 of our Great Adventure but we were glad to be home.