A lovely night sail
04 April 2013
The Canaveral Barge Canal

Seems odd to be by ourselves. I check the forward cabin to make sure that we don't have any stowaway guests who might have overslept. It's empty.
From Lake Worth FL we have about 1200 miles to our final destination at Chesapeake Bay MD.
To speed up the first part of the journey we decide to take the ocean route north from Lake Worth (Palm Beach) up to Port Canaveral.
The 18 hours overnight sail was in just the best of weather. Ten miles offshore - no horror stories, no floating debris - no unlit tankers looming out of the darkness, just a beautiful golden half-moon which gave good light shimmering off the gentle swells.
We re-entered via the Canaveral Barge Canal. This canal, roughly 11 miles long and 12ft deep, was built in 1965 for the specific purpose of transporting crude oil via barges from oil tankers anchored offshore to power plants on the Indian River Lagoon.
The Indian River Lagoon is a grouping of three lagoons including the Banana River and Mosquito Lagoon, is roughly 156 miles long and connects with Lake Okechobee plus the St Lucie River.
It is all monitored by the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge who do a great job in preserving this habitat for the immensely diverse bird population as well as fish, dolphin,, loggerhead + leatherback turtles, gamefish and much more.
The weather was amazingly good after the last weeks in the Bahamas where front after front chucked wind and rain at us. We anchored in the Lagoon just opposite the small town of Titusville FL.
This is the best picture I could find and it shows the entrance in from the ocean and, if you look carefully, you can see the commencement of the canal at top left.