Jan. 6:

The forecast had us up early to take advantage of calm water in the morning with Northerly tailwinds coming up as the day went on. Perfect!

We packed and left the Best Western in Melbourne that had served as our base for three nights and were at the Castaways Park in Palm Bay by 7:45.  The water was like glass as we pulled away from the beach and headed south along the shore at 8:10. My pace at 17 strokes per minute proved sustainable for as long as I wanted and I kept it going for about two hours before breaking to rest.  We had covered 12 miles before noon and I felt great. My personal objective of getting stronger and increasing my endurance seems to be being met. We had not seen the tail winds yet and the sun was hot.  Our course took us down the river past numerous small islands that had been built from the dredging of the ICW channel.  We stopped on one of these where there was a sandy spit and took a walk. 

The wind started to pick up as a cold front approached from the North. I had been watching a low-lying bank of clouds for some hours. It just stayed there and the perfect water lasted until about 2:00. We decided to push on to the Wabasso Causeway in Vero Beach, which would make it a record day for mileage.  At about 3:00 the winds were from the Northeast and getting stronger by the minute. It added to our speed but was making waves that threatened to swamp us. At about a mile to go before the causeway whitecaps formed and the water became quite rough. I was glad to be going down wind. At this point it would have been certain swamping to try to even go across the waves. We were flying along at 6 or more mph. Water from the crests of every other way started to spill over the gunwales every so often and Heather had to start using the boat pump.  I was not at all sure we would make it to the shelter of the small island supporting the causeway before filling with water. 

About 100 yards from shore I noticed it getting very shallow as my blades hit bottom! We came to a slow halt on the soft sand beneath us. There was no longer enough water to support the waves.  On shore Heather noticed a man with a huge camera aimed our direction. It turned out to be Alex Boerner from the Vero Beach Press Journal who had called us on Heather’s cell phone a few hour earlier. Heather had told him we were heading for the Wabasso Causeway and expected to be there at about 4:00.  We arrived 45 minutes ahead of schedule and just in time.  The wind started to howl and whip up a frenzy of spray and white water.  Alex had taken off his shoes and rolled up his pants to wade out to take pictures of us. We had to get out of the boat and drag it across the sand and through the small creek that led around the island to where it was calm and we got back in and rowed to a nice beach to pull out of the water.

Alex turned out to be a very nice young fellow who took an interest in what we were doing.  We admired his huge camera with telescopic lens and monopod.  He asked some questions and took some notes and was on his way.

Shortly after Alex left I received a call from Andy Bowler, Executive Director of the Indian River Affiliate of Habitat for Humanity. We agreed to meet the next morning before he left for a conference.

Heather had called the Chases who soon arrived to help ferry me back to the car. Sue stayed to keep Heather company while Gordon drove me the 23 miles back to Palm Bay. It seemed like a long way.  We had gone 22.6 miles. I’ll give the wind one of those miles.

After loading the boat on the car again we drove to the Chases home.  A shower and clean clothes made me feel very mellow.  After the delicious salmon dinner I had no choice but to go to bed early.  It had been a great day.