Chapter 69:

ESCAPE WITH A TINY DANCER

69. I felt great relief once I cast off and left the “cornucopia of delights” marina. It was not yet dawn as I backed my sloop out of the slip. I made certain to escape well before any of the derelicts woke up. These people were straight out of the movie Deliverance. “Squeal like a piggy”, a famous line from the movie, kept running through my mind. It was all there except the banjos. I shuddered to realize how true to life that actually was. But now I was free again, alone on my Love Boat. No more Samantha and no more Tiffany, thank you.

I slowly motored back into the Ditch, headed northbound. Surveying my charts, I was disappointed to see that the day would be spent traversing Mosquito Lagoon. For the uninitiated, allow me to explain the cause of my disappointment.

These waters are on the north edge of Cape Canaveral, the giant NASA rocket launch site in Florida. The Ditch is carved into the Indian River until just past Titusville. Then, it turns east, going across a wide bay of very shallow water, through the Haulover Canal at Allenhurst, then turns north again. The water is then called Indian River North, hugging the west side of a vast expanse (30 miles by 5 miles) of knee-deep water called, appropriately enough, Mosquito Lagoon. During previous trips through this area, I have been forced to drop anchor for the night here. Avoid doing this like the plague or you will be inundated with the omnipresent stinging insects. The waters live up to their name.

Motoring through Mosquito Lagoon, at 5 knots mind you, takes all day. The terminus of this torture is 30 miles distant. In essence, boats are “trapped” in this boring, insect infested, shallow stretch until New Smyrna Beach and Ponce inlet. The only consolation is that a mere 10 miles further north from Ponce inlet is Daytona Beach.

Aahhhh … Daytona! Land of wide beaches and scads of attractive bodies in scant bikinis. It was fortunate that I had escaped from the “cornucopia of delights” marina at such an early hour. Getting underway before dawn meant that I could easily make Daytona with plenty of sunshine left.

Crossing Mosquito Lagoon gave me an abundance of time to identify a suitable spot to spend the night. Consulting my guidebooks I identified an appropriate marina in Daytona on the Halifax River. Calling ahead I reserved a transient slip. With mental images of scantily clad women scampering about on the famous beach or sunning themselves (on their belly with their bikini tops unfastened for that “no line” tan), I reserved three nights.

I arrived in Daytona by late afternoon.