Yesterday we totally stuffed ourselves with Ryan's Pizza in Cocoa... had to take walk around town to kill some of the calories... The new City Docks are awesome... signs welcoming you to stay overnight but to please limit your stay to 48 hours... most of the town or city docks are "daytime only" no overnight... so it's nice to see what Cocoa has done.

Up early and away at 0715 before sunrise... it was a short good morning by the sun... it was overcast and as soon as the sun peeked out it was quickly hidden by the clouds and later in the morning we came into thick fog for about 2 hours...

Once the fog burned off the early overcast sky had disappeared and we had a bright sunny day the rest of the day.... and the small boats came out of the cracks... they were everywhere going in all directions... very seldom was there less than 5 to 6 boats in view around us... it was madness.

We arrived to our destination for the day... Vero Beach and proceeded to the Active Captain Anchorage named "Red Gazebo"... we were securely anchored at 1415... our position for the night N27°38.937', W080°22.279'. We traveled today for 7 hours covering 47.31 nautical miles averaging 6.76 knots.

After a very peaceful night at anchor we awoke very early at 0530... still very dark... moon was visible in the sky above the skyline where the sun had started to brighten the horizon... quite beautiful. We took our time preparing to leave finally getting away at 0700 and heading back to ICW.

We had one other boat anchor close to us and I could see a sailboat that had anchored maybe 2 miles south of us... other than those two boats Mosquito Lagoon was empty... still had alight breeze from the south.

Our destination for today planned as Cocoa, FL... where will get to eat at one of our favorite pizza restaurants... Ryan's Pizza... it was one of our regular stops heading north and south every year... this will be the first time we have been in 4 years... looking forward to it.

For a Wednesday the small boat traffic was insane... we figured it had to be because it's the week between Christmas and New Years... a lot of pontoon boats...

We arrived to Cocoa at approximately 1145 and there was space on the Cocoa City Docks... the docks we were used to were gone and brand new floating docks were here now... much longer than the previous fixed docks... one of the hurricanes had destroyed the old docks... the new ones are VERY NICE INDEED!

We were secure to the docks at 1200... our position for the night
N28°21.293', W080°43.339'. We traveled today for 5 hours covering 32 nautical miles averaging 6.4 knots.

Looking a the Google Maps link displayed when you click on our coordinates the new docks are not shown... looks like a barge of some sort instead of docks... but that's where we are...

After returning from our RV adventure to Fort Myers for Christmas we spent yesterday regrouping and preparing to leave today.

We left the dock this morning just before sunrise at 0700.. tide was dropping with high tide was at 0534... no depth reading at the dock but once 100 feet or so away from the dock we started seeing 7 to 8 feet. The canal heading back to the ICW had a few shallow spots where the depth sounder stopped working... we made it to the ICW with no bumps.

Plans today were to go to New Smyrna and dock at one of the city docks arriving around 1400... however, we found ourselves running 7.6 to 8.2 knots most of the day... a very favorable current... only slowing down once we reached New Smyrna where we lost our boost in speed.

We arrived to the City Docks well before 1400 and also found them both filled with boats... no space for us to dock... it was early so we continued on deciding on anchoring around 1400. We had to run a little longer to find a decent anchorage stopping at 1445 between daymark 19 and 20 in Mosquito Lagoon... Active Captain anchorage named Mosquito Lagooon 1 at N28°49.827', W080°48.169'. We traveled today for 7.75 hours covering 52.66 nautical miles averaging 6.8 knots.

The anchorage is really out in the middle of nowhere... the sky tonight should be spectacular as long as there are no clouds.

Lily and Herman were very happy to be anchored...