Rocky Point, Indian River

We awoke to a nice sunny (and yes, hot) day and set our sights on getting to an anchorage on the Indian River (Rocky Point). We would stop in Melbourne, the next big town, to refuel, get a pump out and some ice -- our last provisioning stop before getting home. Then we would enter a stretch of the Indian river that is less populated and quite beautiful, consisting of a 20 mile or so line of small islets on one side of the channel and with a barrier island off in the distance on the other side. The islets are mostly man-made -- constructed  from the tailings when the Intercoastal was first dredged -- most have become treed at this point and harbor a lot of bird life. Our anchorage would be behind one of these islets.

Cocoa in our "rear view mirror"

There are no bridges and/or significant currents in this stretch of the Intercoastal, so travel would be uncomplicated. The only notable occurrence was the surly marina attendant at our Melbourne stop -- thus far, every marina we visited has gone out of its way to be helpful and provide whatever service we needed -- this guy barely spoke to us, seemed resentful that we had called him out into the heat and wouldn't take a paper towel with a little diesel on it when I handed him back the pump (he said: "No, there's a garbage can at the end of the dock you can use") -- he was clearly having a bad hair day.

More birds of the Intercoastal:

"Honestly Harriet, George just doesn't know how to listen to me !"

An osprey fledgling

Along the way, I noticed a helicopter landing on a big building -- being near Kennedy Space Center, I figured it was some corporate big wig coming in for an Executive review -- wrong!!! Upon more careful examination with the binoculars, I discovered the building was a hospital -- a Heart Center no less -- made me wonder of they weren't delivering a heart for a transplant (only one person got off).

The helicopter is on the roof, under the red sign.

We arrived at our anchorage around mid-afternoon, dropping the hook behind the northeast corner of the islet. We were nicely placed in a moderate SE breeze and the islet nicely cut any wave action to a minimum -- just delightful. We could see birds lounging and feeding off a sandbar that jutted West from the rear of the islet and there was even a small boat on shore, indicating someone had come out to visit that day.

Behind the islet -- you can see the small boat on the beach

We quickly dropped the swim platform and went in for a swim. While we were swimming, we noticed two or three dolphins lazily feeding along the sand bar about 20 yards away  -- they would come up and go down slowly, presumably just scooping up the fish we could see jumping in the water. We (well I, Sue got out of the water when she saw the dolphins) were hoping that they might come closer, but they kept their distance -- whether it was because they knew we were there or not, we'll never know.

This anchorage had one more special treat for us: we were both sitting on deck reading around dusk -- suddenly we noticed flocks of birds, perhaps 10-20 at a time, heading in toward the island. Terns, gulls, ibis, pelican, storks, ....  we could see them, group after group, flying in towards the islet. They appeared to be coming "home" for evening, presumably needing a place to sleep and recharge their batteries before starting the next day's foraging and feeding activity. Wondering whether this scene was also being played on the other islets, we got out our binoculars looked at the next islets up and down the chain -- it was!! As dusk grew deeper, the chattering from the birds grew louder until it abruptly stopped shortly after dark -- nature is truly amazing.

There's an obvious bird flying in, but if you look carefully, there are many more visible in the trees