Florida Heading South

Wednesday November 10 – Wednesday November 17

We are anchored off the town of Fernandina Beach by 1:15, the day has cleared up and warmed up from its foggy start. Jan & George get a ride from some locals to the liquor store that is not close to town. Later Jan & I go in to check out town. Steve & George come into town later for a walk and to check out restaurants & pick us up. Back to the boats for cocktails and change of clothes then back in to dinner. Thursday we are underway by 7:15, no fog but everything is wet from all the dew. After an hour we are out the channel and turn south with 1-2 foot swells on the beam and wind behind us so a little rocky to start. The winds clock more east and the swells build a little but we are able to just sail all the way down to the St. Augustine Inlet. With the swells breaking it makes the entrance a little rough & hard to see the buoys but we make it in safe & sound and have a 20 minute wait for the 3:30 opening of the Bridge of Lions. A 65 ft tourist schooner “Freedom” is also waiting for the bridge opening, and keeps sailing into us as we both circle around, making the waiting interesting and irritating. We are on the mooring ball by 3:45, great !! mooring balls with new long lines all neatly folded on top of the mooring ball. Real easy to hook & run your line through and clean, as someone from the marina goes around putting the lines up after you leave. Jan & George have some old time friends (Agnes & Ed Danciger) in the area so they come & pick us up and we all go to dinner. Friday we have the use of Ed's car, drop off main sails from both boats for some repairs then off to West Marine & Wall Mart. Guys go back to the boats for some boat work while Jan & I walk through town. Dinner in town Friday night. Saturday get main sails back & more boat work we have now found some genoa sail repair that needs to be done, Steve does some of the sewing by hand but then decides to take it into the shop also. By this time it is too late to get it to her but talk to her and will drop it off Monday. Saturday night we go to the Danciger's beach house for dinner. Sunday Jan & George leave to head down the ICW for a 2 day trip to Melbourne. We spend the day ordering parts and making lists of what else we might need to get on Monday with a rental car. It is a luxury now to have access to a car so we want to make the most of it. Monday as Enterprise picks us up we drop the genoa sail off at the sail shop on the way back to the Enterprise lot since it is on the way. By 9:30 we are on our way for the short 45 minute trip over to Green Cove Springs where our mail forwarding service is located. Steve is also planning to get a Florida license since his Texas one will expire in July and they would not let him renew before we left. Since he does not plan to be back in Texas before July he thought getting a Florida license would be the easiest way to go. Pick up the mail, I am still missing 2 important pieces we have been waiting for, and over to the DMV to get Steve's license. Well he misread the instructions, and just brought his passport but also needed his original SS card. So back to St Augustine, into the dinghy, back to the boat, find where he had put his SS card, back to shore, in the car & back to Green Cove Springs. At least now we know the way. All worth it in the end as they issue the laminated license right then & there & it is good for 9 years. Stop by 2 outlet malls on the way back, looking to see if there are any stores we need to visit. Find a few then stop at Target and another small mall and the grocery store all on the way back to the boat. Like I said it is not often we have a car so we make the most of it whenever we do. Tuesday we spend the day going through mail and then into town for lunch. Getting the boat & ourselves ready for a 24 hour trip offshore down to Ft. Pierce. Wednesday morning we make the 7:30 opening of the bridge and head out the channel, in nice calm water the buoys are easy to see. We have calm seas, light winds and comfortable temperature for our 24 hour trip down to Ft. Pierce.