On Tuesday morning, we were up early and off the dock a little after 7:00. Although the weather forcast predicted rain all day long, it stayed dry MOST of the day. We traversed the area between Fernandina and Jacksonville at LOW tide, which I will not willingly do again. We only touched bottom a couple of times but we were in a lot of skinny water!

In the previous paragraph, I said MOST of the day for a reason. When we were about 4 miles from our marina, I noticed the sky growing very dark and menacing ahead of us. We prepared the cockpit as best we could and just in time.

This time it was an official gale with winds in excess of 40 knots and lots of rain and plenty of cloud to ground lightning. The vsibility did not go to zero at least, but it was still a bit of a challenge for a while. The rain had let up some but was still falling when we reached our marina. Despite this we got checked in and into our slip without difficulty.

Here's a pic of First Mate "Big Brother Dave" manning the helm. Looks like he would prefer the "large print" day markers.