Our second day started with coffee to take the chill off a 45 degree morning. We left Hammock Beach just before 8 a.m. and were immediately greeted by a pod of black dolphins playing in the channel. An osprey plummeted to the water and carried off what looked like a softball. As he swooped by our stern, I could see that it was actually a little puffer fish! Scenery during the early part of the day was mostly houses and canals, or mangroves and fishermen/crabbers. Each crab boat had a small entourage of pelicans who followed the boats from trap to trap, hoping for spilled bait or escaped crabs.

Things changed radically as we approached Daytona. Now we viewed a cityscape which led us under 3 bridges: one a drawbridge type called a bascule (complete with sunken sailboat just beside the channel), one fixed bridge, and one deconstructed bridge being rebuilt.

We anchored in Rockhouse Creek Anchorage and were able to see the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket taking off from Cape Canaveral (featured image) and glimpse two of its boosters descending back to earth. About four minutes after the rocket ascended, the ground-and-water shaking blast noise was audible and palpable in our anchorage.

Now as the sun is dropping lower in the sky, the anchorage is becoming  quieter. Most of the ambient noise consists of birdsong, the occasional passing motorboat, and the mournful murmur of drum fish  beneath our hull.