St Augustine, Florida

A peaceful gathering of birds in New Smyrna Beach marina.

Sunday morning the winds abated (TG) and we backed out of the dock at 7AM. Our motor was running smoothly so we were on our way crossing the Indian River, through the NASA Haulover canal, and heading north through Mosquito Lagoon. The wind increased to 15-18k but the ICW waters were just moderately choppy. On Saturday when we left Canaveral we had 2' waves in the ICW water. Along the way we saw dolphins though none stayed to swim in our bow wake. We will miss these when we get back north. We also saw lots of manatee. In one spot there were 4 of them and they seemed to be swimming on top of each other.....well it turned out to be what we thought...mating season! We were told they have been very active this spring. By 12 noon we had gone 32 miles and arrived at the New Smyrna Beach Municipal Marina for the night. We found our friends Joe and Cherie had decided to stop there yesterday and stayed another day to wait for us to arrive. We wanted to make it to Daytona Beach but the tide was not favorable. We had a relaxing afternoon and accomplished a few jobs that needed to be done. In the evening we walked to an outdoor fish grill for dinner.

Today, Monday, started off at 7AM again. We backed out of our slip and waited for the first bridge to open at 7:20. We passed through the first spot known to shoal, Ponce Inlet, without incident and continued the 52 miles to our next concern, Matanzas Inlet. We were also pleasantly surprised to find this inlet passage had been dredged. We saw no less than 12' an hour and a half before low tide. The next 12 miles to St Augustine go through a winding grassy marshland. We were moving at low tide and found a few shallow spots....once we saw only 9" under our keel. Thank goodness we did not touch bottom though and arrived in St Augustine by 4:30PM. After filling up with diesel and water we moved to our mooring ball and took a breather. It was a long day of travel. After dinner Kirwin's Ice Cream called to us and we went ashore to indulge. A stop at the liquor store to replenish our Cruzan Rum Cream and Cruzan Coconut Rum then back to the boat for an evening of rest.

The Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine

 Our friends Joe & Cherie from s/v Narsilion and also s/v Cookie Monster are here in the mooring field. Cookie Monster we had met 2 years ago in the Exumas, Bahamas so we look forward to getting together with them tomorrow.