Wedneday May 4: Flagler Beach - Movin' On

We're headed for St. Augustine today (about 35 miles) and will spend at least one day there as it sounds as though there is much to do - including a Trolley ride (which I love!). Will give a full report on that later today or tomorrow. In the meantime we continue our travels north with the intent to move rather quickly (if that's possible at 8 mph) up the coast. Peter and Cheryl spent a day with us as they headed back to Ontario. We had a great time and even played some euchre (which the women won :-) ). It was wonderful to catch up with them and we hope to see them either this summer or next winter when they return to Surona.

As we continue to travel, Steve still has his job of the day he wants to get done. Tuesday's was to fix the dinghy motor fuel line which had sprung a leak. Rubber sitting in the sun all day doesn't do so well. Anyway, job done. Most of the cruising on this part of the intercoastal is on very wide, very shallow expanses of water. The Banana River, the Indian River and some others whose names I don't recall. There's much wildlife - an osprey on almost every mileage marker again. And finally manatee in the channel by us. Several were spotted. We anchored Wednesday night in Mosquito Lagoon - kind of an ominous name, don't you think? But no bugs to be seen so it was ok! The picture of the chartplotter shows how very narrow is the strip of land between the ocean and where we were anchored.

The job yesterday was polishing the chrome railings etc again. But the day was a good one as we have a north wind (which means cold as I'm sure all of you know!). Lots of activity near New Symrna with dolphin researchers running around in little boats. As you can see from this island of birds, wildlife abounds!

Passes a rather large tugboat that is clearly being lived on but it appears to be sitting on shore. Not sure what that's all about but it was a fun sight along the waterway!

The anchorage tonight was a welcome sight after another 60 mile day. This abandoned channel is an example of Florida real estate gone bad. Two parallel canals were dug with the plan that houses would line both sides of the canals (for docks). As you can see, it's instead just a nice protected place to spend the night. Steve went to extremes to get American Idol for me - first the over air antennae on a yard stick on a boat hook on the mast. No dice. So then he paddled the dinghy to shore to tie us up enough so we could try the dish. It worked minimally but we saw bits and pieces. Oh well .... off to St. Augustine!