New Smyrna? where's Old Smyrna?

SHIP'S LOG:

In case you might be wondering, an "un-grounding" costs$850 between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach. Yup, I did it again! But it really wasn't my fault. I was dead center between two marks and I went up on a bar and had to call the guys in the red boat . . . again! To make matters worse, the channel had been dredged less than a year ago and already it is half shoaled in. It goes in my book as a place to watch on the way back in the Spring. Talking with the Towboat US operator he noted that they average at least one sailboat a day at that very spot. I wouldn't feel so bad if I had been out of the channel, but right in the middle!!!! You would think they would mark it better. I may have to get a subscription to SEATOW for the trip back as TowboatUS probably has my name on a list of some kind somewhere, though I would think that I now know where I have to be extra careful and might not go aground at all on the trip back. Maybe it would be safer to go outside all the way back?

A couple of miles further on, the ICW goes right around Chicken Island and that stretch was also dredged within the last two years. And like the spot I hit, it already is shoaling in. Boaters avoid it like the plague. Luckily, the channel around the left side of Chicken Island is fairly wide and deep and that's the way I went. The thing is that the ICW channels, those cut between bays, rivers and lagoons are not natural and so good old Mother Nature tries to fill them in. For the Core of Engineers, it is a never ending battle and one that isn't a government priority in the dispersal of funding, state or federal. Strangely, what also contributes to the problem is people using the ICW. Tugs and barges create lots of turbulence and that sucks sill and mud and sand into the channel. Anyone in any size boat doing over 10 knots creates enough of a disturbance to do the same.

I have been following Skipper Bob's Publication on the ICW and for the most part it has been very helpful. However, it needs serious up dating. Many of the places that he recommends as anchorages have been taken over by the locals with their mooring or have silted in such that they are not usable. That was the case here in New Smyrna Beach. New docks, new mooring and shoals have made it difficult to find a spot to drop a free hook, so I found a cheap Marina, the New Smyrna Beach City Marina . . .$1/foot! and all the amenities. Ah Hot showers and warm toilet seats.

Tomorrow is a long haul through Mosquito Lagoon and the Haulover Canal and on into Titusville. The weather will be nice and clear with a high in the mid - 60's. But don't despair, there is a cold front coming on Wednesday but it will clear out immediately . . . . to make room for a bigger and badder and colder cold front on Christmas Day. Of course it is just the type of weather Santa likes what with all that fur he wears. Why couldn't the man wear Bermuda Shorts?