Unbelievably dense fog lay over the harbor at St. Augustine this morning as we awoke to depart.  Florida - fog?  What's up with this?  We could barely see the boat moored behind us let alone the sides of the river.   The weatherman indicated a wildfire ashore, which we could smell, could be exacerbating the poor visibility.
 
It was prudent to wait and I put the time to good use with a nap.  By 9:30 the sun was shining brightly and we left.  We are now leaving the "First Coast" of Florida that extends from the Georgia border to St. Augustine.  The name is one apparently whistled up by developers in the eighties to compete in the marketing arena with other Florida regions such as the "Sun Coast", the "Treasure Coast" and the "Emerald Coast" etc.
 
Happily for us the salt marsh wetlands continued intermittently through parts of the First Coast with less development along the waterway than expected.  We've continued to see some good birdlife including a first sighting of a little blue heron - little more than one-half the size of his large cousin. It's darker and doesn't have any whitish patches so is harder to spot in shadow along the shore and maybe we've just missed them before.  We've been spoiled with all the light colored birds such as the egrets and the bold antics of the pelicans.
 
Tonight finds Puffin anchored on the waterway next to one of the myriad bridges here in a cityscape that is Daytona Beach.  The navigation here is more assured and for the most part easy.  But we already miss the waterways winding through the low country marshes of the Carolinas and Georgia and all the wildlife that it brings.