Southport, NC!!!

I have to back up to Ormond Beach where we left off Wednesday.  We had the anchor up at dawn again....

 

The plan is to go out the St. Augustine inlet and head towards Beaufort, NC  -about 3 days/nights.

I had been noticing that for over 100 miles I didn't see a single Trump flag!  Strange because this area was covered up with them last year when we came thru.  (I eventually did see exactly 3 Trump flags in over 200 miles.)  

 

But here's a really weird one that I saw while looking for Trump flags.  This flag says SHUT UP KAREN.  Really?  Why?

 

Just a pretty reflection along the way.  I haven't really complained here....but the currents were almost entirely against us for days on end.  We were averaging 4.5 knots (with one engine).  Not our normal  6 knots for the same setting.  Very disappointing speed.

 

This bridge opened just fine for us....more on that later.

 

Some sculling boaters in calm water.

 

This is a non-descript photo....but the bridge in the background was CLOSED for repair!  To go around it would mean about 8 extra hours of motoring.  We anchored at about 1pm to wait.  The bridgetender told us that they were targeting a 4pm fix to an electrical panel that had failed.  Eventually several other boats in the same predicament anchored near the channel with us.

 

Finally they announced a test opening and then opened us to transit about 5pm.

 

And then to add insult to injury, about an hour later we were told that the St. Augustine Bridge of Lions was having hydraulic problems.  They did allow us to go thru with only 1/2 of the bridge open.  Once thru that bridge, we're free to go to the ocean!

 

Out the St. Augustine inlet just as the sky was turning dusky.  Full sail up although there was not much wind.  We were expecting the wind to fill in overnight and didn't want to have to raise the sails out in the open water at night.

 

You may have read news reports about the "weed" that will be washing up on the Florida coast this summer.  This is some of it....a real pain when you're trying to fish as it gets caught in your hook.

 

A pretty sunset.  Seas were bouncy part of the time, not terrible but just enough that you had to make sure you had a good hold on something for each step you took 24/7.

 

As you may have read on the emails, we were hoping to make it all the way to Beaufort,NC but there is a strong weather system coming that will cause the seas to be nasty....so we had to stop about 100 miles short and do the rest in the ICW.

A freighter leaving Southport, NC as we were approaching. 

 

And sunset approaching the anchorage.

 

As we followed the channel into Southport, another freighter was leaving.  I looked up his destination on the AIS  - they're heading to Cuba.

We'll be slowly making our way to Oriental now, maybe seeing What If and Bluejacket that are now in Beaufort!