Well we have finally made it to Stuart, all in all while a longer journey than planned all went fairly well.

My ribs aren't fully healed yet but at least they don't hurt all the time anymore. Otherwise everyone is healthy and glad to be staying somewhere for a little while.

We left Fernandina Beach after spending one day exploring the town, motored over to Cumberland Island National Seashore for a day and explored the beach.

Maddie was in heaven on the beach, tide was out and recent storms had washed millions of shells up on to the beach. Maddie's pockets weren't big enough for all she wanted to keep so mom and dad helped her out. She went back to Malaya with a bag full of new treasures!

We left Cumberland Island anchorage in the dark, motoring down the St. Mary's River with the intention of sailing to St. Augustine. Once out of the river we discovered an uncomfortable easterly swell and no wind so we rolled more than was comfortable. With the St. Johns River entrance just a few hours away we made for it and the ICW.

I had never done any of Floridas northern ICW and figured with all the bridges it would take forever. Well most of the old bridges have been replaced with 65' fixed bridges so the bridges aren't really much of a problem. There is a tidal current problem in areas but we managed to catch a lot of fair currents as we motored along.

One bridge a few miles south of the ST. Johns River was interesting. We arrived with a foul ebb current and found a 2' standing wave in the approach to the bridge. You could see the opening was a sluceway and as we approached we were tossed about from side to side a bit and keeping the bow facing the right ways was a challange for the helmsmen.

I wasn't sure what was going to happen when we hit the wave, I didn't expect to get wet but wasn't sure we'd have the power to clear the bridge without waiting for the tide to swing. The pilot book says 5+ knots on the ebb here and we had all of that. We gave the throttle emergency war power and had a knot or two of speed over the bottom. We cleared the bridge slowly but without incident.

It was an interesting several days on the waterway as we made our way to Stuart, the vegetation and topography constantly changed and we discovered there is a lot of wild Florida left just a stones through from population centers.

The contrast between large multi-million dollar homes and the obviously old dwellings of long time residents was stark in places, in others we motored for hours past modest single family homes, then more hours of motoring without a residence in sight.

I was concerened about water levels and shoaling around inlets but even the worst one we still had a foot of water under the keel. After days of worring about that one inlet, we had been warned it had shoaled badly, it was sort of anti-climatic to find we had worried about nothing.

So now we are secure in Stuart at the Sunset Bay Anchorage and Marinia, a nice new facility just above the Roosevelt Bridge on the St. Lucie River. The staff is great and we've met most of our neighbors, a few slips down there are even some kids Maddies age so she will have some playmates for the winter.

After we work out a few kinks we hope to make the Bahamas or the Keys for a vacation later in the winter. If your in the area look us up!