Watched several boats come & go - none seemed to want to come in or stay in the anchorage and one stayed at the mouth of the ICW and entrance to the anchorage then left at first light.

We waited until 10:00 to up anchor then headed towards the McCormick to make the noon opening. While we were only 4 miles from the bridge we also had the tides and currents working against us and only did from 3 to 4 knots to get there. Passing through another bridge the currents were amazingly strong and we did from 2-3 knots through there with Wayne fighting the currents at the helm the whole way through - they really buffeted us in the narrow channel. Once we got to the McCormick we had a half hour to wait and watched a couple of Coastguard Boats near us checking out some debris that looked like a mangled life raft in the water near us.
They were hailing the powerboats that came by - asking when the last time they had an inspection was...

We finally were able to pass the bridge (they're building a new 65 ft bridge but it wasn't listed that they were closing the bridge anywhere) and saw another boat from Port Huron - Rapscallion II. It was neat to see another Michigan boat and he was wearing a Santa Hat so I had to hail him to say hi. Another boat Jon Ray heard us and couldn't reach Rapscallion so I relayed messages back and forth while making grilled ham/cheese sandwiches for lunch (I got the burned one LOL). It sounded like we were all headed for St Augustine's for the night but we pulled off into this anchorage on the Tolomato River a few miles up from St Augustine. We decided we'd handle the tricky navigation in the morning.

As we were anchoring we saw them coming up the river too and both boats also pulled into the anchorage. This was actually the last feasible anchorage accessible to deep draft boats before St Augustine. One other boat came in later at twilight. It's a nice anchorage - plenty of room in 12-18 feet of water with a tree-lined shore. Beautiful full moon! Wish I had my old camera with the 250 lens - my little digital just couldn't pull it in...