Well, we’re back on the Intracoastal Waterway, this time headed north. Dock lines and the electrical cord get left on the deck, because we won’t be heeled under sail and we know we’ll be plugged in again at night. It’s nice to have 110 every night, to run the air conditioner, to have TV and to charge the computer. It’s nice to use the electric coffee maker in the morning. We may not be able to do that all season, but as long as we don’t have a dinghy running we’ll be at docks, so we might as well enjoy it.

And it’s still beautiful to be out on the water. Florida, for all it’s people and hustle is still full of wildlife. Today we saw dolphins and manatees and turtles (we think loggerheads). We passed a little island covered with pelicans. I took this picture as we passed. We thought it might be a rookery, but it looks like there are other kinds of birds, too.

We continue to go slowly. It took a while for the wind to start today and by the time the wind picked up to fill the staysail, so did the tide. We had it going with us while Bud was trying to hold the boat in place and wait for a bridge to open. Not long after that we passed the inlet and now we were going upstream…slowly. But we persevered and made it to this municipal marina with floating docks (no pilings) and even though the wind was blowing like crazy when we pulled in to the dock, we had no trouble.

And there is a West Marine right at the marina. We knew we were back home again when we spent 45 minutes and $350 at West Marine. Tomorrow we are headed to St. Augustine, and once we get there we will try to figure out what we’re going to have done to the boat, where we’ll have the work done, and where we’ll be while it’s done. There’s also a lot of work we want to do ourselves, and we need to figure out where and when we’ll do that. The idea of doing a bit of work each day on the boat while you’re cruising didn’t seem to work. It’s hard to clean and polish when you have no good source of fresh water. You’re reluctant to do other repairs since you know if you break something or lose a part you will probably have to have it’s replacement shipped to you. So the boat gets a minimum of attention and you really need to do a deliberate maintenance stop. I don’t think it has to be in the US (in fact, it’s probably cheaper in some other countries) but since we needed to come back here for our family this is where we’ll do the work.