Southbound Once Again
24 November 2018
After 6 days in St. Augustine it was finally time to cast off and get moving south again. Our plan had been to leave on Friday; however, the weather turned ugly again on Thursday with rain and wind warnings for Friday. We had been anchored for the first 4 nights just across from downtown in a spot with fairly strong tidal currents. The conditions were fine while the winds were light, however, once the wind came up things changed. Quite often the boats lie sideways to the current and tack back and forth on the anchor chain making for a hairy ride. Around 10 a.m. Thursday morning 2 of our neighbours bumped together during a strong gust of wind, luckily no damage was done. Since we were anchored only 175' from the bridge we decided to bail out and headed to the marina for a dock. This turned out to be a great move as conditions deteriorated throughout the day but we could safely leave the boats and attend the Thanksgiving Day Festivities.
Being at the marina gave us a chance to do a few chores on the boat since this could be the last marina stay before we head to the Bahamas. 2Outrageous had bent their anchor roller during a really strong wind gust on Thursday so we decided a good day of work on Friday would benefit us all. Besides, the band we wanted to see was only going to play on Friday night. So the new plan was to head out Saturday morning when the weather improved.
We had to wait until 10 a.m. Saturday morning to cast off once the tide eased off a bit. It had rained so much in the last two days that shallow water wasn't an issue as coastal flooding advisorys were posted. However high water means low bridges, our vertical clearance is 60' plus an 18 inch antenna and today we went under a couple of bridges with less then 62' of clearance. One thing about the ICW in Florida it is fairly straight so we made great time and arrived in Daytona at 4:30 p.m.
Today's picture was taken last night at the Mia Casa. To think some people can't walk and chew gum at the same time, this guy was unbelievable. He had thimbles on all his fingers to play the symbols, tambourine, cow bells and washboard, spoons taped to his thumbs for the echo blocks on his hips and rattles on his wrists that he played in front of the small microphone.