We decided the ICW was the best route for this leg, due to fronts passing. The water was shallow again, but navigable. The current weather patterns are a cold front every 4 days, however, we are having cool nights and warm days. We are currently at a marina in Merritt Island for several weeks before heading further south. We are enjoying family and friends for several weeks here. We are just a couple of miles from the Cape Canaveral and watched a rocket being launched the other day. Hopefully, the shuttle will go as scheduled on January 10th, that will be a highlight! More to come.

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We left Beaufort SC on Wednesday morning around 9 am. The weather called for winds to be 10 to 15 and die down to 5 knots during the later part of the day. Well the forecasters were wrong.... winds picked up as soon as we got out of the channel (13 miles out) to about 25 knots with gusts over 30. Seas were very rough, the worst I have experienced! We new at that point it was going to be a very long night. We continued on our coarse to Jacksonville Florida. Waves were somewhere around 20 feet and fairly close together. After many prayers were said by both Pat and myself, the winds finally subsided around 6 am on Thursday morning. We still had seas of 8 fett or better. We certainly made good time surfing down 25 foot swells at 11 knots. We made it to the St. Johns River channel entrance at 9 am on Thursday morning, of course on an outgoing tide with the winds from the east, however, we made it. We have never been so tired... we pulled into anchor, emailed a few friends and crashed for the evening. We then had an easy day and a half to St. Augustine where we are now. I am sorry I don't have any pictures from this leg, our camera was submerged when waves crashed into the cockpit unexpectedly. Fortunately the marina had a courtesy car and we went to walmart today to get a new camera. More to come

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The waterway between Charelston and Beaufort was a challenge as the water was very shallow. We are learning to ride the tides and have done well - we have not run aground any more, Although we have pinched up a few times. We are planning to be in Beaufort until Thursday and then leave for Savannah or Jacksonville fl Mostly Depends on the weather! Cats are doing well, sometimes I think they get a little stir crazy. I left one of the floor hatches open and they both crawled under the floors of the boat. When we finally got them out, they had been in the bilge.... not fun cleaning up a wet cat! I don't think they learned there lesson... they are curious about everything. More to come.

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