Warm at last! Warm at last! Thenk Gawd Almighty, we’re warm at last!
22 December 2009 • Fernandina Beach, Florida
I am writing this from the comfort of a really nice marina in Fernandina Beach having shed all the cold weather gear and being back in T-Shirt and Shorts - Hurrah!
We left Charleston at 09h00 yesterday and had a nice sail throughout the day escorted for part of it by pods of dolphins and of course our friends Eric and Cori aboard Further. Then the sun set and the two boats drifted apart, Further more to sea and Nelleke holding to the rhumb line. Further is a slightly smaller boat so their theoretical hull speed is a little less and they were affected by the short choppy sea state more than we were so after a couple of hours they decided to move over closer to land to take advantage of the wind shadow so they fell even further behind. We had intended to slow down but our fuel filter began to act up and I had no intention of changing it at sea at night so we decided to press on to get to the next dock where I could make the replacement in comfort. This was their first experience with offshore passage-making and definitely a first for offshore at night. For newcomers and indeed even for some of us who have been doing it for awhile, offshore passages at night are always a little nerve wracking - your can't see 'em coming so the boat movement is not something that you can prepare yourself for, and of course in the dark everything is always a little more magnified. By midnight we had lost contact. We could hear them calling but they couldn't hear us - very frustrating so we called TowBoatUS and they managed to call them and pass on a message in the early hours of this morning to let them know that we were OK and that we'd meet them in Fernandina. The night was clear and was really quite innocuous except for the fact that it was cold.
The marina has been added to since we were last here: new service buildings, new docks, a new lounge for boaters, ect and we discovered that the weekly rate of $5/ft works out to about $0.72/ft/night plus power which at $30 works out to a little over $4 per night for 30A service. All in all I think that it's a pretty good deal plus the town is well worth a visit.
Oh. And have I mentioned how warm it is?
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