Thursday November 21: Daytona Beach

What an enjoyable time we spent with Jim and Linda! It was so good to see them again :-)

What's really amazing to me is that having met and traveled with them and Peter and Cheryl (Surona, Deja Vu) for really a relatively short time as we traveled the Loop, everyone has made an effort to stay in touch and what truly good friends all of us have become ....

Sadly it was just a couple of hours as they were on their way from Brandenton back to Edisto Island, SC for their family Thanksgiving. The whole family is coming in!! Last year we were fortunate enough to be able to join them for the holiday. It was like being at home :-)

After they were on their way, we spent the afternoon waiting out the rain so we could ride over to the Marine Store. Not that we had anything in mind that we needed.

But sometimes you don't know what you need until you see it, right? The selection of electrical connections was truly amazing as Steve looks over what we might need to add to our inventory. We also picked up a 50 amp splitter (to 2 30 amp plugs) that we often need at a marina that might only have 50 amp power. Good deals all around!

Under cloudy skies but temperatures in the low 70's we headed out after a more than usual leisure morning (that means we left at 8:00 instead of 7:00!).

Steve is really getting good at retrieving our lines from over the tops of the pilings. Mmmm.. maybe he should have been a cowboy?

The weather continues to deteriorate but it is warm enough that only the two front pieces of plastic are needed for travel today. This is enough to provide a windbreak for me and even if it rains (which of course it did) it's enough to keep everything dry. Good thing we re-waterproofed the canvas at Matt and Wendy's last month though. It was really a pain to use an umbrellas under the flybridge canvas :-)

As we traveled south toward Daytona Beach, the waterway ran less than a mile from the oceanside for much of the 60 mile trip. It was easy to spot the homes built to withstand a hurricane surge.

The other side of the waterway was large marshlands - often parklands or wildlife refuges.

The boat traffic on the ICW has been crazy this trip south. Nothing like we've ever seen in the previous times we've headed south.

Sailboats are everywhere - most seem to be headed for the Bahamas (at least according to the chatter on the VHF radio which is used to talk to other boaters). Today was particularly busy with them.

We "met" (spoke over the radio) one couple from Amherst that sold everything and moved to their boat in June. Another couple was on a boat called "Changes" who were from Mentor. Both were headed over to the Bahamas. The weather stayed about the same as we finally  made it to the bridges and high rises of Daytona Beach. Light drizzle, low winds and calm seas. A good day!

Arrived about 3 pm so there was time for a ride to the beach. Steve loved this mailbox! I'm thinking this guy doesn't get very many bills in the upper mailbox :-)

The beach ride was great! The tide was going out so there was plenty of hard packed sand on which to ride.

Lots of sea gulls just sitting in the surf. It didn't look like they were eating or anything so I'm not sure why they chose this spot!

Today was a good day .....