Cocoa, Daytona Beach, St Augustine and Fernandina Beach. May 12-23

Our time in Fort Pierce was very nice but it was time to move on.  So as planned, we left for Cocoa on May 12.
We had a nice trip to Cocoa with Vicki and Tom (Grand Baron) and Carey and Nancy ( Tug LeeLoo).  Here they are departing Fort Pierce in their new boat with Grand Baron taking up the rear of our "wagon train"



There were lots of manatee areas to navigate.  Here is what one sees in the channel to navigate around!  Just a nose or a tail, water is too murky to really see them.

We anchored south of the power lines and bridge at Cocoa and celebrated Carey and Nancy's purchase of the Tug LeeLoo and their first day cruising in their new boat.  Tom and Vicki provided dinghy service and everyone came aboard Sum Escape for a cocktail and then banana cream pie that Julie had made on the way to the anchorage.  Well it was actually banana cream pudding as the pie didn't set with non dairy milk....but no one cared as it was very tasty!

 

Our 22'+ foot clearance is just enough to squeeze under many 23' bridges!  Low tide helps too!

The next day we moved on to Daytona Beach, Halifax Harbor Marina.

The others anchored out as they were moving on and we were staying a few days.  They dinghyed in for a farewell dinner at Zappi's Italian restaurant.  It was a very good meal and great company.  We hope to catch up to both couples next winter as plans now call for us all to return to the Bahamas.  We miss you guys!
DeVere and Carole aboard Job Site were already at Halifax and after they finished visiting with Carole's sister and brother in law, were also ready to move on north. 
BTW, they actually finished the Great Loop here as they bought their boat new here 16 years ago!  Congratulations Carole and DeVere!!  As they said, they really did not know what the Loop was then.  Now they can enjoy the travels on the East Coast at a more leisurely pace than they did years ago "delivering" the boat to northern Michigan.
So on Wed the 18th we left Halifax with them and moved on to St Augustine for two nights.  Took the trolley tour over to the Fountain of Youth that Ponce de Leon made famous.  Here we are getting young by drinking from the fountain!  I don't think it is working though....

The Ponce de Leon Memorial:

 

 

 

Replica of the 1587 Mission of Nombre de Dios Church, the first Christian church built in the US

.

 600 year old oak, "The Senator"

Toured the Catholic Cathedral Basilica in St Augustine.  This is America's oldest Catholic Parish and was built in 1797.

Toured the Hotel Ponce de Leon opened in 1888, now Flagler College since 1968.  All these sites are just fantastic displays of period architecture and design.

                                                   The Rotunda

                                               This was gathering room for women only. 

A medallion on the ceiling, the two dates are Ponce De Leon landing in Florida and the second date is the date of construction of the hotel.

Also toured the Castillo de San Marcos fort which was built in 1672.  It is an amazing place.  It was never taken in battle and all changes in flag were the result of treaties or other deals, not military action.  It is really hard to fathom the engineering and labor that went into this.  Really worth touring.

 

 

The entrance to the city of St Augustine

 

We had a great dinner at Centro Piano Bar and Restaurant with Carole and DeVere.  Good food and company once again!  I have to keep reminding myself to behave when out to eat or the weight gain will certainly follow!  So far so good, our walking and boat chores at least get us some good exercise.
On Thursday night a nasty thunderstorm moved through.  One couple told us a sailboat in the mooring field was hit...they saw it happen.  We stayed under the boater's lounge roof as we were on our way back from dinner when it hit.  Lots of lightning.

The Bridge of Lions sculpture on the bridge approach.

On Friday we departed for Fernandina Beach (Amelia Island).  Here is a shot of Castillo de San Marcos from the water on the way.

Here we are moving into northern Florida marshland areas.  Very pretty area.

Thunderstorms were forecasted so we were watching the radar the entire trip as they were coming across the state from the west.  A we were nearing Fernandina we cranked it up to 20MPH for a few miles to try to beat the storm. 

We got checked in and the rain hit, but the storm went south so all we got were a few sprinkles of rain. 
The town here has a really nice shopping district.  We like this store's chalkboard....

Saturday night we went to David's Restaurant on the recommendation of a local.  Looked like not much from the outside, but the inside was very nice and the food was very good.  Haven't had such a good steak since leaving the Chop House in Grand Rapids!  This was our farewell dinner with DeVere and Carole as they were leaving for Hilton Head early Sunday.  We hope to catch up with them again next winter in the Bahamas as they are planning to come south again for the season too.
On Sunday we walked to Mass at St Michaels about 8 blocks away.  Very nice church and friendly parishioners too.  Then we broke out the folding bikes and pedaled over to Fort Clinch.  What a beautiful bike ride.  Once into the state park it was three miles of tree lined shaded riding...just beautiful. 

Entrance to Fort Clinch

Then we got on A1A and went south to Seaside Beach and the famous Sliders Seaside Grill to rehydrate and refuel for energy!

Then we hit Publix on the way back to the boat....it was at least a 15 mile trip on the bikes today and it felt good to be back on them.  The last time we used them we were in the Berry Islands back in March!  But they don't take much room in the lazarette and they sure are nice to have.  Good exercise too!
On Monday Tom changed the generator oil, Julie did cleaning, laundry and organizing, we booked airline tickets to go see all of our kids this summer and we also rode the bikes to Wal Mart for a couple items we needed.  Sunset from the boater's lounge while waiting on laundry.

Tomorrow we cast off for Cumberland Island National Seashore.  We'll anchor out and spend some time hiking the sights on the island for a couple days. Hopefully we see the wild horses! Just taking our sweet time migrating north.....
Thanks for following our blog.

 

Leaving the Bahamas....Nice to be back in the US of A... May 1-10 2016

We had planned to leave for Green Turtle Cay on Monday May 2, but waited for DeVere (Job Site) to return to their boat as his flight from Ft Lauderdale was cancelled on Monday. We took care of some household chores (or would those be boat hold chores?) and had a nice relaxing day in general. As soon as he arrived on Tuesday we left Treasure Cay and travelled 17 miles to the Bluff House Marina at Green Turtle Cay.  To do this we had to go "outside" through an area known as the Whale.  It is only a few miles out of the Sea of Abaco and around Whale Cay (due to a sandbar in the Sea of Abaco) but it can be notoriously rough.  But not for us today....a nice ride to Bluff House for Sum Escape and Job Site.  It was actually rougher on the Sea of Abaco than the Atlantic! 
Smooth seas...

And what a nice spot to spend a few days.
Scott and Brigitte (Putz'n Around) were already there so we joined them along with DeVere and Carole at the pool and got re acquainted and learned about the area. 

We had a great dinner watching a thunderstorm pass just to our north that night.  The Ballyhoo Restaurant

We had fish visiting our vessel everyday.  We also had an occasional sting ray. No pictures of the sting rays unfortunately.

 

 Wed we had a little rain...yes it even rains in the Bahamas!

On Thursday, we walked to Green Turtle Cay Club, a nice hour round trip walk to the other marina on Black Sound.  I think I like the Bluff House better.  We walked across the bluff to the beach in the afternoon and spent a nice afternoon visiting and just enjoying the sights. In the evening, we went to pizza night at the Ballyhoo Restaurant on site.  It was really good!

 

On Friday we launched the dinghy to go to the New Plymouth settlement on White Sound. 

We attended the Green Turtle Cay Island Roots Heritage Festival. 

The local band...

 

So when was the last time you had lunch at the liquor store?  Well you can do that in New Plymouth.  What a cute little business.  And the burgers were good!

We toured the settlement and stopped for a goombay smash at the originator's bar, Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar.  What a friendly place, and great goombays too! 

In the evening on Friday we dinghyed back to New Plymouth to get dinner at Pineapples.  The place was about to close due to lack of business and the eight of us changed the chef's mind!  He was the only one at the establishment and was previously the chef on lobster boats so whipping up 8 meals was no issue for him! The gentleman there cooked us great fish kabobs....there was only one other patron at the joint.  But it was well worth the rough dinghy ride. 

 

We also went to the locals watering hole.  The high tides due to the new moon had waves washing up between the deck boards at the bar!  And boy, was it a rough and wet dinghy ride back to the boat! 

But it was a fun evening for our last night in "civilization" in the Bahamas....until next year.
Saturday morning we cast off the lines bound 86 miles away for Mangrove Cay, an anchorage we could use on our trip back to the good ole US of A.  This worked out well for us given it was such settled weather.  This cay would not have offered much protection if there was much wind wave action. 

 Approaching Mangrove Cay, our anchorage for the evening.  Note the water color, we are so going to miss this......

Sunset

 

 

We pulled anchor at 5:30 AM for the last 114 miles of the trip across the Gulf Stream to the Fort Pierce inlet. 

Sunrise as we are leaving Mangrove Cay. Note how calm it was!

We travelled with DeVere and Carole and Scott and Brigitte angled off toward Stuart Florida. 

 

The Little Bahama Bank is like an aquarium!  Dead calm and we could see down 30 feet to the bottom!  Julie got a good video (for a phone video anyway) of some of the clarity of the water and some fish swimming by.  We were both a bit sad to be leaving such a paradise for boating.  But we will be back next year!

Once off the Little Bahama Bank it was still quite calm.  But as we got into the Gulf Stream, the waves really picked up and the 10MPH cruise speed was getting very uncomfortable.  So we exercised the diesels on Sum Escape and Job Site for about 2-1/2 hours and went about 18 MPH to "get on top" of the waves to smooth things out.  Burned up some of that expensive Bahamas diesel fuel.....

 

 Julie was lying down in the salon and did good with her new trick of shutting the curtains so she cannot see the waves.  But that is also why we have no crossing pictures of the rough seas...our photographer was out of commission for a couple hours.

 

As we got closer to the inlet for Fort Pierce the waves really settled down so the last 10 miles or so we slowed back down.  The extra speed definitely took some time off the trip and we were entering the inlet around 3 PM.  This was about an hour before low tide and the current coming out of the inlet was quite strong.  Our normal no wake idle speed is around 6.5 MPH....we were making 2 MPH over ground against the tide!  Job Site following us in along with a couple sport fishing boats.

And then getting into the marina was interesting as well.  The cross current had us "crabbing" down the narrow channel to the Ft Pierce City Marina.  After fueling, we took a dock next to Job Site and got the salt off the boat.  It was really thick as waves were hitting the top of the bimini on the fly bridge at times as we crossed.  It was a long Mother's Day for Julie but the calls from the children were so much appreciated!
We had dinner at the Original Tiki Bar on Tuesday night to celebrate Carey and Nancy's purchase of a new boat....more on that later.

We'll spend a few days here re provisioning, walking the city and checking on my Mom's house here.  Checking Mom's house

A cat in the local 1950's Rosslow's Dept. Store.  A "survivor" business Julie and Vicki enjoyed shopping at .

 The view of the city from our slip.



On Wed. we went over to Harbortown Marina and looked at Carey and Nancy's new boat!   Nice job you two....beautiful Nordic Tug 37!



Tom visited the Navy SEAL museum while Julie went grocery shopping.  The displays are really well done, sorry I didn't take better pictures.  These guys are amazing....we are all indebted to them for their unselfish service.  The museum is in Fort Pierce as the remote beaches here were used for training way back when the UDT program was started for WW2. 

  

We will cast off on Thursday with Tom and Vicki (who arrived early Monday morning from the Bahamas aboard Grand Baron) and Carey and Nancy on their new boat (Tug LeeLoo) which is about a mile north of us at another marina. It is great to catch up to our river system travelling buddy boats again!  That is one of the really cool things about this trip, one keeps running into folks one has not seen for quite some time.  It is really fun!