Latest bird pictures

Wood Stork. These guys aren't very pretty when they are on the ground. But what a beautiful site when spotted in the air!!

Roseate Spoonbill. This guy is really "in the pink" his eyes are a bright pink. As you can see his legs are pink also! We see quite a few of these guys in the winter.

Crested Caracara. We haven't seen this guy in awhile so were tickled to get a picture of him. His head really does look flat. This is his favorite perch and he can be found on it fairly often.

Sandhill Crane. These guys are really pretty neat and we were also able to get a nice video. Paula stooped down to take a picture of one and he acted like he was going to take the camera away from her. This is at Fox Lake Park in Titusville.

Green Heron. This little guy has been hanging around the dock for the past couple of weeks. He gets upset pretty easily and yells at you as he flies off.

Wild Turkeys. We came upon this flock of wild turkeys during a trip recently. There were about 20 birds in the flock. We actually saw a larger flock earlier in the day.

Launch of newest rocket (by Jim)

Well, we hadn't been back in Titusville for a week yet when Paula nabbed a picture of the new SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that was launched! The launch was by a private company owned by one of the founders of PayPal.

Our personal water taxi (by Paula)

We thought we should post a picture of our dinghy or "dink" as we call it. When we are at anchor or on a mooring this is our taxi. This is what we use to go to shore, pick up friends, get groceries or just to go exploring the waterways! We also use it to fish from and just play. It's also our lifeboat, although we will hopefully never use it for that purpose! Our dink is a RIB (rigid inflatable boat). It's 9'8" long, has a 15 hp motor, and will go up to 28 mph. This picture shows it tied behind the Sea Eagle. When not in use or when we're traveling, it's kept on an upper deck. It's raised and lowered on a davit with an electric winch.

Heading for Titusville our "Home" port (by Jim)

"New" Bridge of Lions

We left St Marys, GA on Thursday, December 2nd, and traveled 72 miles to St Augustine, FL. We had a beautiful day and an uneventful (meaning nothing bad happened) trip. We arrived in St. Augustine and picked up our mooring around 3pm. St Aug charges $20 per day for a mooring ball. That includes dink dockage, showers, laundry access, etc. We walked all over St Aug for several hours Friday and Saturday, including a trip to the St Aug Winery for a bottle of port and seeing the Christmas Parade on Saturday morning. We had planned to stay until Monday, but a cold weather front was about to move in so we decided to leave on Sunday for Daytona. We traveled 52 miles and were anchored just north of the Seabreeze Bridge in Daytona by 1pm. Heavy wind out of the north beat on us all night long. We left Daytona about 8:30 am, planning on being in Titusville by about 2 pm. Unfortunately, crews were working on the JayJay Rail Road Bridge (aka NASA R.R. Bridge). We were stuck on the north side of the bridge with 8 other boats for about an hour waiting for the repairs to finish.

Black Raven and Freedom (St Augustine) tour boats

Of course Paula spotted this Bald Eagle as we went by Ormond Beach!

Sunsets and Kingfishers

Another great sunset in St. Marys. We've had truly amazing sunrises and sunsets almost every day here!

This little Kingfisher is continually flying around the marina. Paula named it Eddie (for Eddie Fisher). Then one day she got a closer look and noticed the red band around the chest. So Eddie became Edwina!

Edwina stretching her wings.

Our time here is getting short. We will be leaving in the next few days, but we will definitely be back!!

Thanksgiving 2010, St Marys, Ga (by Jim)

This is a panning video of the anchorage in St Marys on Thanksgiving morning. We had a very heavy fog that had mostly cleared when this was taken. The day turned into a beautiful, sunny, 78 degree day. Cruisers are invited to St Marys for a Thanksgiving feast put on by volunteers at the local hotel. This is the 10th year of the tradition. 10 to 15 boats a day have been coming in all week. More have arrived since I took the video. The final count was 102 boats and over 300 people. If you figure that each boat brought a side dish and the town residents brought 15-20 hams and turkeys, you can imagine how much food we had! It gives new meaning to stuffing the turkey!!

Watch this cool video of one of the sailors playing the saxophone this evening for the people in the anchorage.

Anchorage music.

The Otter Family (by Paula)

There is a family of river otters living here at Lang's Marina in St. Marys, GA.  We've been enjoying watching them fishing, diving for oysters, and endlessly playing.  Here's a short clip of three of them goofing around on the "playground"