We decided (on the fly) to stay in St Augustine for a week. The 'fly' was when the Dock Master at the marina, on the phone, asked us how long we were staying. We had been tossing around 2-3 days, but the price was a bit high by the day, so we made the commitment to stay for 7 days. Phew!
Today I can happily agree that this was the right decision.
I am exhausted! I don't know about Waz, but I know he will be glad to take a break for a few days at least.
We cannot take time off until the baby has had a bath, though. We could almost start a SALT factory, she is so covered in the stuff. First there will be the hosing, then the soaping and squeegeeing and then the drying. Did you know that salt gets into EVERYTHING!!!
We rose with the sun, this morning, at our anchorage in Daytona...there were rowers out on the water, which surprised us.
You can see all the salt on the windscreen!..Waz had his jacket on this morning coz it was a bit chilly, but the sun soon had us shedding warm clothes and back to our normal apparel...t-shirts and short!
We weren't in any hurry to leave this morning, as the Bascule bridge just up ahead was on a schedule until 8.45am. After that it was on request. First we went under a large highway bridge with very pretty mosaics around each leg.
Many fab boats parked up along the river as we went north...
and some not so much fab as 'interesting', as we like to say when things don't quite measure up, or meet our expectations.
We can honestly say that the scenery was the best we have experience yet, in Florida. It was a glorious day, sunshine and water-wise, and the scenery was a lovely surprise.
Here we are being followed by a flotilla...most of them went through the 3 Bascule bridges which had to open for all of us...4 of us, I think.
We had encountered this lovely boat coming across Okeechobee, and she is fast...and the captain tend to put pedal to the metal....
At my insistence, Waz radioed him and asked the make of boat...She is a 2003 Grand Banks...lovely. I am rather partial to dark hulled boats!
This is pretty much what the charts looked like for most of the morning, but it wasn't boring ...rather the opposite, with so many pretty little islands and marshes and lots of fishermen out on the water after such horrid week of bad weather., and we are not far from the Atlantic, here. In fact, we could see the sea, a bit further on. The great thing about boating today, was the deep water!
This is the canal/river leaving Daytona...lots of lovely homes on the water, and so there was plenty to look at. Lots of boating activity also.
Perfect!!
Here we are running parallel to the Atlantic Ocean...and...
..and finally the Atlantic Ocean.
All the homes are on stilts...between the ICW and the Atlantic, along the coast line.
More Atlantic.
The channel was very deep...up to 38 ft in some places...but very windy, and rather lovely...lots of marshes:) Lots of bird life, and we thoroughly enjoyed the trip, all the way.
We had one last tall bridge to go under, then a sharp right turn up a river to our dock for the next 7 nights. The photo below is the view we now have from the dock, across the marshes...which is very noisy in the morning and last thing before sun down...:) There are Marina all the way up the river, but very little traffic much beyond where we are docked on the end of the T.
It is close to most things, in St Augustine, and we walked to the WInn Dixie supermarket after dinner, a short 3/4 mile walk. It is good to have some fresh fruit!
We were too tired at the end of our long day, so we went to the nearby Hurricane Harry's for dinner...crab cakes (of course) Calamari, Waz had surf and turf, not expecting a WHOLE Maine lobster on his plate...which we had to dismember at the table!!, and I had grilled Shrimp. It was ok, and just fine, really, as I didn't have to cook or clean up:)
After our walk, we were pretty pooped, and the internet is crummy, so these photos are going to take forever to download.
Waz just told me....we have come 826 miles on 630 gallons of diesel, which is approx. 1.3 statute miles per gallon, which is pretty good, we reckon!
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