Cocoa Beach, FL

 We were up early because the run to Cocoa Beach is about 9+ hours.  

The rowing crews were out on the river, waved as we passed.

The usual sights along the way.  Lots of boats in Florida!!

 

 

Most of the day we had a trawler, Salty Mare, that was following us, about the same speed.  They called on the VHF - and offered to send me a photo of us passing Haulover bridge.  They texted the photo to me.

 

And then I took a few of them over the next few hours and returned the favor.  Boating folks are mostly the nicest!

Anchored at Cocoa - 

 

 

Should be a pleasant night - the low tonight is 70 degrees.

Daytona Beach, FL

 We were up early and had the anchor up with the sun.  (I know, doesn't look much different than the sunset...)

 

Lots of pretty vegetation with lots of palm trees.  Otherwise, the same ole strip of houses and docks along the waterway.

 

Several opening bridges, we didn't have to wait for a single one!   But this one was malfunctioning and only opened one side.   No problem but seemed a bit tight for us to fit thru.

 

And the final pucker-factor for the evening was a very high tide - this bridge was just 61' above the water.  And you know how high our mast is?  Yep, 61'.  We went under the bridge very, very slowly with no problem.

In the evening, we were treated to a SpaceX rocket launch!!  We could even hear the rumble of the engines!  (Although It did take a couple of minutes for the sound waves to actually reach us. Pretty cool.)

 
We'll be off first thing in the morning early for a long run down to Cocoa Beach.

Underway, destination Daytona

 We had a fantastic evening happy hour with four other Mantas At a local pizza place. Was great to meet a few new faces, and really great to catch back up with Ralph and Leslie.

We left Saint Augustine early this morning, we’re slogging down the intercoastal waterway. Destination this evening should be somewhere around Daytona. I’m back in shorts and T-shirts, really enjoying the sunshine!

St. Augustine, FL

 It's a bit warmer....not hot.....

We took a nice stroll about a mile over to the Sailor's Exchange.  It's a "flea market" kind of place with all kinds of nautical parts.  Mostly used but some new.  Fun just to browse around.  We walked in the door and saw Bret and Gideon from Panache!  They are selling their boat and starting a "land cruise" in an RV for a few years.  Had a nice long visit with them.  And Kris and Dean from Charm came in the door!    Amazing that we saw two crews that we know there!  

We didn't find anything we couldn't live without, so then we just wandered around the city.

Love the architecture!  

 

Just wandered down the busy streets.  A lot of tourists!

 

We had a fun lunch out at a pub, sitting outside in the warm sunshine.  

 On our way back to the boat we stopped by and chatted with Hahalua.  They're at the municipal marina for a few days - we'll see them at Happy Hour tomorrow.

And back to the boat, I did something bad.....I put in a load of clothes in the washing machine and didn't get the door closed....and ended up pumping all 100 gallons of water onto the floor!  What a pain.  We'll make a few trips with jerry cans to replenish the supply, so it's not a huge deal.   But still a pain.  I will obviously be more careful in the future!!!

(And before you ask, "how is that possible" - our washer is old and to keep it functional, we have over-ridden the built-in lock mechanism that would have prevented this!!)

St. Augustine, Fl

 So that was a few chilly rainy days!  Glad it's over...

Our new friends Kris and Dean on Charm passed closeby the mooring field on their way to a marina for a few days.  We'll get together with them tomorrow evening for a happy hour with the crews from 5 Mantas!

Otherwise, it ended up being a mostly sunny (finally!!) and pleasant day.

 

But, dang, I don't like these 5pm sunsets!

St. Augustine, FL

 We made it thru a very blustery night with no problem.  The VHF radio was active all thru the night with calls for help to the St. Johns County Fire/Rescue boat.  Boats that were anchored (not on a mooring like we are) were dragging their anchors in the heavy wind and swells.   

The forecast is more rain/wind during the day but not quite as bad as overnight.  The temperature is chilly but not awful.

The view just now - sun should be shining!!!  Will likely look like this most of the day.  Another reading-a-book day!

St. Augustine, FL

 Unfortunately, this will be our view for the next 2 days.....we're not likely to leave the boat due to the impending nor'easter.

The forecast looks pretty yucky!!  (We're at the black star)

Depending on what weather site you look at, we could see sustained gusts of about 50 knots for 12-24 hrs tonight overnight.  We're tied securely to a mooring and we'll be on watch all night, I'm sure!  Oh well, I guess every day can't be lollipops and sunshine!

St. Augustine, FL

After we got the boat settled on it's mooring, we took the dinghy in for a bit of leg-stretching since our last real activity was Sunday morning in Oriental.

Love St. Augustine!  Beautiful old buildings.  We wandered down the "retail" streets - we'd never done that before.  Not really our cup of tea, but we did find this little "serve-your-own" beer bar.  Fun to get sips of the different beers on tap - $.38 an ounce was recorded on a card - you pay at the end.   Good fun.

 

Then we just wandered around, enjoying the pleasant day.

Now we've got a nor'easter coming our way.  Will not be pleasant for a few days!!

St. Augustine, FL

 We had a relatively smooth passage - 431 nautical miles from our home dock to St. Augustine.   

Beautiful days.  Winds always from behind so a little difficult to keep the sails working. 

 

Strangely, we didn't pass any moving cargo ships.  These were anchored near Savannah in the distance.

 

There really are a lot of ships anchored!! Each red radar return is a cargo ship.

Beautiful sunsets too!

 

Approaching St. Augustine - about ready to have the motion stop for a little while!

 

The coastline going in the St. Augustine inlet.

 

After topping off with diesel we picked up a mooring ball and we'll rest/relax for a few days in shorts and tee shirts!

Enroute southbound

 Departure!!

I stole these photos from Cathy of our departure (after hugs goodbye of course - hope they'll catch up with us in a few weeks).

 Duane untying the dock lines (we take the dock lines with us).

 

Ed waving goodbye as we back out of the slip.  A beautiful day!

 

Sojourn on the way south!

We decided based on the weather forecast to head on south, not stopping to meet up with our sailing club outing.  The weather window has tightened to probably 3 days, so the extra day we'd spend with the club would cause us to miss the good sailing weather.  

Anyhoo - we stopped at River Dunes for a quick top up with diesel.

Sights along the intercoastal as usual:

 

A huge barge carrying phosphates takes up a good portion of the waterway - and this is a particularly wide area near the Core Creek bridge.

 

 

Birdies enjoying the sunshine.

A sport fishing boat making a huge wake.

 Nearing Beaufort - I always enjoy seeing these weird structures.  I looked it up - they store fertilizer.

 

 

This is a bunch of those huge barges anchored.

 

We were out the Beaufort inlet around 4pm - lumpy seas but not terribly cold.  We'll do our 3 hour loose watch schedule overnight.