Tuesday 3/13/12. The sun rose in an almost cloudless sky. The wind died down to just a whisper. It was a perfect morning on the Indian River. 
Just after taking pictures of the sunrise I heard a quiet “whooof”. I turned just in time to see the nose of a Manatee, and then the back and tail disappear under the water. I rapped on the window for Linda to come out, but by the time she got on deck it had already made the second surfacing and disappeared again. They are pretty good at that. So that ended my cynicism about all those Manatee Zone signs. There really are manatees here.
We pulled anchor and were back into the channel at 8:40A. Before we went a half mile we started seeing manatees surfacing between the channel and the spoil islands just to the west. In the next half hour we must have seen over a dozen of them. Some as close as thirty yards others as far as a hundred. As the channel narrowed at Edgewater, the manatees were right in the channel. This proves Linda’s hypothesis that manatees don’t really read the signs allowing you to go faster in the channel than outside the channel. I believe Edgewater, FL must be the manatee capital of the world!
Just after noon we stopped back at Inlet Harbor Marina in Ponce Inlet, FL for fuel. We were greeted by Cory, who was our dock boy at Christmas time. He recognized us right away. In about an hour we were headed north again. Now we will be on the Halifax River.
As we entered the Port Orange area a pontoon boat with FL registration overtook us on our starboard side. Then he suddenly made a circle back behind the boat and came up again real close. There were two young men onboard. The one yelled, “Are you from the Sassafras?” I yelled back, “Yes we are.” He said, “I’m from Rock Hall.” I gave him the thumbs–up and they were on their way. Apparently the Georgetown, MD on TwoGether’s name board caught his attention. Rock Hall is about thirty miles south of the Sassafras River on Chesapeake Bay.
Passing through Daytona Beach Linda shot some pictures of her favorite bridge. The pictures I took on the trip down didn’t get the detail of the ceramic tile murals real clear. She got some good shots.
As we reach Ormond Beach we saw a sailboat on its side just west of the channel. It appears to have broken loose of its moorings during the high winds of last week.
Cruising north of Daytona Beach there are very few, if any, places to anchor. We decided to pull out of the channel at marker Green 13 and drop the hook. We anchored here on the way down it should work on the way home.
Green 13 (Ormond Beach, FL): N29° 18.813 W 081° 03.787
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