01/26/2025 ICW Day 26 : Herding Ducks

by Brian · Published January 26, 2025 · Updated February 3, 2025

Last night’s camp on the city park worked out successfully! There were a few interruptions, but not from cops. If you remember the boats we saw rafted together… a couple of the guys came ashore at 1:30 AM.

“I gotta take a shi*,” one guy kept calling out to the other guy, who was presumably back on his boat. This yelling was only a few feet from our tent, so it woke us up.

I think he finally gave up on communicating with the guy on the boat and went off to the bathrooms. When guy #2 made it to shore, he was a little grumpy that “take a shi*” guy had left his little dinghy in the way of his beach parking spot.

“F*** it! I’ll walk in the go*dam* water,” he grumbled.

“Hey, where are you?”

He never heard that the other guy was going to go 💩 …

But the rest of today was pretty much the reason you take these kinds of trips.

The morning was saturated with wildlife - birds diving everywhere, and multiple pods of dolphins in their feeding frenzies 360 degrees around us. We stopped and drifted while I stood atop the paddle boards for a better view.

We would also spend most of the day just South of thousands of ducks. Each time we got closer, they would fly a few hundred feet North, land in the water and wait to take off again the next time we tacked by.

Mid-day, we considered ending on Rockledge Island. There we met Matt and Doug who were interested in what we were doing - and offered advice on how to view a SpaceX launch.

“Yeah, 80% of SpaceX launches happen right here!”

I told him that the other 20% must be happening down by where we live, then, because we have seen several out of Vandenburg.

They looked it up: “Yeah, there is a launch tomorrow at 3:30 PM. I heard the Amazon rocket going off. They are making their own competing product with Starlink. It woke me up because there were two sonic booms. It shakes the whole house.”

Guess they have earthquakes in Florida after all. Add that to your list of potential East Coast natural disasters.

We sailed into the headwind all day, but we are listening to Andy Weir’s “Hail Mary Project,” which is turning out to be a really good book. We could not find it for free in English, but managed to get it in Spanish. This makes it additionally engaging, so time on the boat is really enjoyable.

⛵️

Photos:

Morning leaving the park. It was a good night!

The dolphins came close, but unlike Pacific dolphins, they were not interested in us. They were mostly interested in something under the water which was causing quite a frenzy!

Tonight’s camp - next to a taco stand that seems to have floated away from where it was supposed to be. On average, I’d say we see about 5 abandoned boats per day, by the way.

This is called the “barge canal”. We considered going through it at one point. This would have been a slightly different route.

We cleared a spot for our tent. Apparently, there is a toxic tree that causes rashes like poison oak back home. I’m a little worried that this may have been that tree. We washed thoroughly in the sea… hope that works. 🌊

This sunset kept on giving for an hour!

Strava Comments:

Janet W.

Sunrise to sunset with you today on the water was an ‘almost perfect’ day!

Stan H.

A wayward taqueria!?!? 😂

Gordon L.

Gorgeous photos from you both today . . . and most days come to think of it.

Carol D.

I just finished reading that book. I enjoyed it, especially Rocky 🎶

Rod G.

Brian and Janet. What an amazing adventure. Glad the weather is warming up.

Holly H.

Red skies at night, sailors delight.

Mark G.

Wonderful photos - I did not anticipate the ability to camp in such beautiful isolated camps. So,except for welcomed sounds of nature it must've been pretty quiet last night. Brian Lucido I am very curious about the tides. I think you may have landed at close to high tide and luckily departed in the morning about the same tide. 3-4' tide? I imagine when the tides don't line up for arrive and depart there can be some hauling involved.