Titusville, FL

 Up at daybreak and traveling with 3 in the convoy!

 

 

Beautiful day - warm temperatures and little wind, perfect for motoring down the ICW.  This is part of a huge dredge.

A few bridges to contend with, as usual.

Cape Canaveral launch pads in the distance.

Anchored near Titusville.  Beautiful scene.

 Charm -

What If

Sojourn, Charm and What If

Charm invited us all over for Pizza Friday.  Yummy artichoke/veggie pizza for me.  Great fun, hours of catching up.  

We're going to run a short distance tomorrow to Cocoa Beach.  Robert is at a music festival in Orlando and is going to visit with us on his way home on Monday!!  Charm and What If are going to head to Vero Beach where we'll catch up in a few days.

Daytona Beach, Fl

 This does get to be "same ole’, same ole’"….up early with What If…

After a slow motor down the ICW to allow for the bridge opening schedule, we arrived to St. Augustine.  We often stop here, but aren’t going to this year.

Always know you’ve arrived to St Augustine when you see the fort along the harbour -Castillo de San Marcos National Monument - the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States.

First bridge of the day - the Bridge of Lions....

And there were fixed bridges too....

And a couple more bascule bridges...

We're running without our jib - we decided that our repairs were not going to be good enough for the season.  So all options require taking the sail off.....We have a bare camber spar.  Feels odd....

 

We have the sail off and ready to go.  There are a couple of options - having the sail professionally repairs or buying a new sail.  Will decide which in the next day or so.

 

And we had been in contact with Kris and Dean on Charm during the day.  They had been ahead of us for a while but we finally caught up with them.  So now three Mantas together!

 

 We'll head south again tomorrow - probably making it to Titusville.

Absolutely beautiful sunset!

Near St. Augustine

We were up at sunrise to head south.  

The wood-fiber plant looked to be in full motion.  I hope that is just steam and not pollutants!

Lot of pretty scenery along the way.

At the intersection of the ICW and the St. Johns River near Jacksonville, there is a huge shipyard.  Docked alongside was the Sea Fighter - an odd go-fast military catamaran that has a helicopter landing pad on top.

Always fun to motor thru the area south of Jacksonville where all the rich people have 2nd (or 3rd) houses.

That was it for the photos today - we stopped north of St. Augustine at a nice quiet anchorage.  We'll head further south tomorrow.

Fernandina Beach, Fl

Enjoying some quiet time in Fernandina, no engine noise and no wind noise!!  Anchored out of the way with What If.  

Midday, we took the dinghies ashore to stretch our legs a bit. 

Walk about Town, enjoyed all the old houses and building buildings

Jerry And Donna had told us about a favorite restaurant, Cafe Karib.  We were hungry and their Po’boy shrimp sandwich really hit the spot! 

Cool house with carousel horses on the porch! Obviously a private house but I really wanted to go have a ride!

Back to the boat in the afternoon, we spent hours stitching the jib where it ripped.  The plan right now is to put sail tape on top of the repair and over stitch  it. But we have some options that we’re investigating that may include a new sail.  More on that if it ends up happening. 

Will Depart for points south…somewhere near Saint Augustine next

Fernandina Beach, FL

 Fairly uneventful passage....lots more wind than forecast so we did get some sailing in!  Cathy sent me this photo of Sojourn.

Not a lot of traffic - this cargo ship was going into Brunswick, I believe....it all runs together after a few days....

Destination Fernandina Beach -  finally some slightly warmer temps....will stay here a day or two.  We will go ashore with the What If crew and relax a bit!!

(We have a large rip in our jib sail - so we will be sewing that by hand for hours and hours!)

Offshore SC/GA

Not a lot happening on Sojourn while offshore. Just napping, reading and snacking. 

We decided to sail another day/night on the outside, hoping to get down to Fernandina, FLorida.   This will save several days or possibly even a week as opposed to the same trip on the ICW. 

Oh, it has not been all smooth sailing, though. We did have almost an entire day of winds stronger than forecast. All safe though.

Really the only photos were sharing are of sunrises and sunsets. Quite beautiful.

 

Offshore

 We decided to do a little hop off shore while the weather is good so may not be in contact for a day or two.  You can always track our satellite tracker and choose 24 hrs for the past day’s positions.  Tracker

Back to this morning...beautiful scenery as we got underway with What If.

 

 

 The section of the waterway between Onslow Beach and Wrightsville Beach is pleasant.

 

 

 A bit more traffic today but nothing terrible. All the boats were very nice and courteous, giving us slow passes so as not to hit us with too much wake.

 

More bridges to contend with....

But got thru them uneventfully.

Always something interesting along the shore....

A huge dredge with two tugs attached.

Wrightsville Beach marinas have some fancy boats!!

 

 And just like that, time to head out the Masonboro Inlet for a little offshore run with What If!

Cathy snapped this nice photo of Sojourn!

And I snapped one of What If…unfortunately, the sun angle wasn’t very good, but you get the idea!

Onslow Beach, NC

 Up at daybreak - slow slog down the Intercoastal Waterway.  Not a lot of traffic, strangely, for a Friday.  It is chilly but otherwise a beautiful day.  This barge hailed us a couple of times to make sure we were going to stay out of his way...yes, no problem!

Lots of quiet scenery...

 

 

 Always fun to approach Beaufort, NC and the shipping yard there.

 

After Beaufort, it's just lots of wild areas....and military areas!!!  Keep out!  No problem!

Late in the day, our first (of many) bridges....this one only opens on the "top of the hour" so timing is important if you don't want to hover in the channel for long periods.  (Ed and Cathy on What if going thru).

And close by, we anchored for a quiet night in Mile Hammock, a nice little easy anchorage with several other boats.