Back to St. Marys, GA (by Paula)

Here are a few shots from our last few days of travel. After leaving Jacksonville, we ended up stopping for a couple of days in Fernandina Beach. We headed back to St. Marys this morning. As we came into the dock a snap came undone on a fender and the fender fell off and started floating quickly away.  It's always something! Fortunately there was a USCG boat (like the ones in the picture below) getting ready to dock and they were kind enough to retrieve it for us, saving us $80 or more to replace it! We are now thinking we may stay here through Thanksgiving so that we can attend the huge dinner that volunteers from the town put on each year for all the cruisers. 

Beautiful sunset at Fernandina Beach













 Cool "string art" bridge.  Anybody remember doing that stuff as a kid?

Navy helicopter sneaking up from behind

 Obligatory Bald Eagle shot

We've become really adept at spotting these guys!

 Two Coasties playing tag

 An Osprey fishing for breakfast

On the move again Blue Angels air show (by Jim)

Left St Marys, Ga. early on Friday 10/22 heading for Jacksonville, Fl. We have slip reservations at the Naval Air Station who just happens to be hosting the Blue Angels for an air show!

Guess who showed up to welcome us to Jacksonville! Yep that's one of Paula's Bald Eagles!

Here are a couple of the hundreds of pictures and videos that we took on Friday, Saturday and Sunday!

We were able to walk to the center of the air show from the marina, all the planes on the ground and booths were awesome. Seeing the Blue Angel pilots and crew up close was great also.

Salt Marsh Sunrise

Paula took this picture of the salt marsh behind the boat this morning. I thought the colors created by the mists coming off the marsh came out so neat that I wanted to share it!

St Marys, Ga. Anchorage (by Jim)

This is an interesting picture. This steel boat, which is being built by the owners, is at the east end of the anchorage in St Marys. One of the interesting things about this picture is the mooring, it is sticking about 8ft above the water. to put it in proportion, the boat is 103ft long! There are actually 2 of these moorings in the anchorage. Most moorings are about 18 inches in diameter.

St Marys, Georgia (by Jim)

What a neat little town this is! So peaceful and quiet, no traffic, no trains, no loud factories. A large part of the travel around town is done by golf cart. We have done a lot of walking already, beautiful old homes everywhere, most with signs in the yard giving the original name and year built. The main street is heavily decorated with hundreds of scarecrows for the Halloween celebration. Tuesday night (10/12/10) the young kids were all out on the main street in their costumes. Candy and treats were plentiful, plus a hay ride, what a treat!

The Cumberland Island Ferry is docked about 200 yards from us. There is a beautiful city park just past that, and then Langs Marina West. (We are in Langs Marina East.) On Friday we took the ferry to Cumberland Island. Another treat! Wild horses all over the island, Lots of Carnagie historic houses and buildings and just an all around beautiful place.

On the move again (by Jim)

Pictures---

Tow Boat US to the rescue

One of Paula's dolphins chasing the boat

St Augustine lighthouse

One of Paula's eagles having lunch

We left Titusville on Monday, October 4th, after about a 4 month stay and headed north. Our destination at this time was St Marys, Ga. We spent our first night anchored behind our friends Jim and Judy's condo in Daytona Beach. We took the dink over to their condo and spent a great evening eating lobster and chatting. Jim does a lot of off shore diving and has a freezer packed with lobster, grouper and about everything you can imagine!

We left the next morning heading for a mooring in St Augustine, Fl. We spent the day fighting a 25 to 30 mph wind right on the nose. After Jim docked at the Municiple Marina and picked up our mooring assignment Paula piloted us through the mooring field to our mooring and did a great job of holding the boat up to the mooring so Jim could grab it. The wind was scheduled to drop off over the next couple of days so we decided to spend an extra night on the mooring and dinked into town for the day.

We left St Augustine on Thursday, Oct 7th at 7:30 am with beautiful weather. Paula saw her fifth Bald Eagle of the trip. When we crossed the St Johns River in Jacksonville, Fl, we started traveling in a "new to us" territory. Beautiful tall pine forest, huge areas of salt marsh, and so many creeks, oxbows and channels it is hard to tell where you are supposed to be going.

And then while running in 20 ft of water, within sight of Langs Marina (where we have reservations) we hit a sand bar just off the center of the channel. 30 minutes later Tow Boat US had us off and traveling again.

The weather has been fantastic. The people are extremely friendly. Lots of good places to eat. Unfortunately there are at least 3 ice cream places within a block of the marina. Not to mention home made candy, cookies, pastries, cake and everything else we should not be eating!

More updates to come . . .

What a week for animal encounters

This was a great week for animal encounters. A Florida White Tail Deer, a beautiful Red Shouldered Hawk and a Mute Swan. It doesn't get much better than this! Hope you enjoy!!