Well we’ve left St Marys and went only about 3 miles to Cumberland Island National Park on, well of course, Cumberland Island. It was formerly the playground of one of the lesser Carnagies, Andrew I believe. At present the island is largely deeded to the feds as a national seashore and a refuge for wild horses. It is quite beautiful and full of wildlife, turkeys, armadillos and other birds of various types. There are camping site that you can use that a close to the beaches. The beaches are pristine and isolated.
We left there and finally got into Florida, Fernandina Beach (N30 41.1839 W081 27.6649) to be exact, where we picked up a mooring. On the trip in from the mooring the outboard quit just as we were about to get to the dinghy dock and refused to start. The symptoms suggested a clogged main jet, because it would run at an idle, but not when to put it under load. I got a tow back to the mothership and field stripped the carb to find what looked like pepper in the bowel and a completely clogged main jet (being a motorcycle mechanic for several years was certainly an asset). We must have picked up some bad gas somewhere. I added an inline filter to be sure that the problem did not re-occur. This killed most of our day there so we stayed another. On the second night we were assaulted by our mooring ball at about 2 in the morning. The wind was against the tide so we rode up on the ball, which kept banging on the hull until the tide changed. Tidal currents are a very common occurance on the ICW, especially in Georgia and northern Florida. You learn to live with them. Needless to say we got and early start the next morning and traveled all the way to St. Augustine, Fla (N29 53.7750 W081 18.5800).
St. Augustine was a great city to visit, both beautiful and historic. Touted as the oldest city in the nation, first settled by the Spanish to guard their ships that were robbing the new world of its riches, it has a great deal of charm. The old buildings are well preserved and of a style us northeasterners are not accustom to. The local college, Flagler College, is housed in part in an old hotel that you gotta see. It was originally built by Henry Flagler the chap that built the railroad from north to south Florida, including the keys. It was an elegant hotel for the rich and famous. While we were there we visited the old fort that was put there by the Spanish. They were daily firing a cannon out over the harbor where we were anchored, a bit unnerving but they said they leave out the projectiles. December 1 was what they call the Illumination, which dates back to the British rule of St Aug. All these re-enactors, dressed in clothes of the era, parade through town while a pipes and drum corps plays the black watch and other classic pipe tunes. It was impressive. They finally ended up in the at the old governor’s mansion to sing Christmas carols.
We left St Aug after about three days to head for Titusville to watch the launch of the space shuttle on Dec 6th. We had and intermediate stopover in Daytona (N29 13.7669 W081 01.2410 ), just to anchor for the night then proceeded on to Titusville (N28 37.6640 W080 48.4970), where we await the launch. WE have ringside seats (on the boat). There is nothing between us and the launch pad but water and scrub, it should be spectacular and we can’t wait. After the shuttle launch we will head down to Melborne to store the boat for a couple of weeks while we head back to Takoma Park, then Long Beach Ca for the holidays. We will get back to the boat after New Years, then it’s the Keys or Bust. While the weather is quite balmy here (T-shirt weather) it still gets brisk in the evenings.
The aerial shot is of St Marys Harbor during the thanksgiving feast.