Florida At LAST!!!

Ohhh we had a nice adventure this morning. When we left Brickhill River which is nearly 5 miles long and sort of parallels the ICW we decided to run the whole length and exit back into the ICW. We would see a lot of Cumberland Island too.

There were a few trouble spots but Karen and I coordinated the movement with her viewing the notebook and the navigation chart and offering fine adjustments to me to stay off the shoals. Worked great. No problem until we exited. Then just maybe 25 yds to the ICW I bumped into some mud – ohh that falling forward motion. I knew I was close and on a rising tide so I just kicked the motor up 400 RPMs and bounced over this spot into the ICW.

The rest of the trip into Fernandina was just slow. The St Mary’s inlet was in full flood and we were against it. Speed was only 4.6 – 5.2 knots for about 7 miles.

Once in we called the Fernandina Marina and there was no space at the dock – transients had all called ahead for reservations. I tried yesterday afternoon but received their VM and they never called me back.

We then tried one of their mooring balls.. They assigned us number 13. No big deal. First attempt I tried to lasso the ball which has worked in the past but because of they way they do their pennants the loop slipped off. We tried again and again. Tried to pickup the pennant float with the long antenna – no dice. We are so far off the water I could not reach it. Then back to the boat hook. I finally caught the pennant, slipped my line in, that I had previously cleated off, and watched it all go overboard – I had uncleated in one of the previous attempts. After about 8 attempts we gave up and we headed a short distance away to the Bell River and dropped the hook. Home sweet home.

It was 12:30pm and we were starved. Dropped the dinghy and went to the dock. Checked in for dinghy landing rights and it was only $2.47 per day.. Not bad.

Went to town and had lunch at the Marina Café. Pleasant place but mostly fried foods. We ate there and it tasted fine but ohhh what a heavy tummy the rest of the afternoon.

This Fernandina Marina is unbelievably busy. Only one fueling area and boats are backed up waiting for fuel. No room for transients tonight.

We are just killing time till Kourtney arrives tonight. Then a run to the grocery store tomorrow morning then back on the boat and will leave to go anchor off Cumberland Island for a day or two.

I don’t know what it is about this place whether it’s just my perception or not but I have never seen so many really large people – I don’t mean tall either. The hair style among many woman here is super short chop cuts. Not very pretty but I guess pretty maintenance free. Thus is the first bit of Americana that differs greatly from the folks back home.