Day 15 - Jacksonville Beach FL to Daytona Beach FL - Annapolis to Longboat Key, FL via the ICW

Who left the refrigerator door open? It is still cold down here. It was 45 when we got up his morning. After a quick shower (yes we do have hot and cold running water on the boat..AND two heads with showers), I was topside disconnecting the electric and rigging two lines so that we could cast off without getting off the boat. We pulled out of the marina at 8:30AM and headed south at MM 746. Our goal for today was to make it to Daytona Beach around MM 835. We had not gone 100 yards when we encountered our first of many bridges today. The indicator boards were showing 64', but I decided to see whether or not they were conservative. We never even scraped the antenna, so at least this one gave us 2' of grace!

It was another cold and windy day, but we spent at least part of the day in somewhat protected waters. There were many neat homes that were starting to pop up along the waterway. This was the antithesis of GA and much of SC where we so nothing for several days.

This one was just after we got under way.

We are starting to pick up a fair amount of traffic along the way. Most of the sailboats are making at least a knot less than we are. It is one of the advantages of the length of our boat. The maximum speed of a "keeled" sailboat is known as hull speed. it is the velocity of a wave with crests that are equal to the water line length of the boat..the longer the distance between the crests, the faster the wave can travel..and the faster the hull speed of the boat. Because of the design of the Beneteau, our water line length is almost the same as the length of the boat...so our maximum speed is faster.

That is not the case for a power boat which is designed to plane up across the wave..so we got passed many times today.

Our first major waypoint today was St. Augustine, FL. We entered under a fixed bridge. These guys were just hanging out on the boards as we crossed underneath. No sooner had we entered the inlet area then the porpoises came out to play.

At St. Augustine, it is necessary to head way out into the ocean inlet to avoid a major shoal.

As we headed back in toward the "Bridge of Lions", this old Fortress was on the west side of the waterway. it is the Castillo de San Marcos, and was built by the Spanish in 1672 to protect against the British.

Just past the Fort, we waited about 10 minutes for the scheduled 12PM opening of the "Bridge of Lions". This apparently historic 90 year old drawbridge is being renovated (as opposed to being replaced by a fixed bridge). During the renovation, there is a temporary lift bridge in place to carry the traffic. These things are pretty neat to watch.

In this first shot, the temporary span is down. The span across the top just maintains the structural integrity of the bridge as the entire lower span moves up and down.

In this second photo, taken after we crossed through, the old bridge is opening during the renovations and the temporary span is just descending

There were some stunning sights of St. Augustine as we motored past.

This is an interesting town. Sometime when we have more time, I would love to go back and spend a few days exploring here.

Here is a sign that we don't see north of Florida. Not only did we see the sign, but a couple of Manatee as well. Unfortunately, they were faster than my camera:(

Unlike our journey through Georgia, The ICW in Florida is a rather straight shot north to south. Much of the route is canal connecting between rivers. Today, most of the trip was not more than a mile off of the ocean. In some spots it was only several hundred yards. Here are just some random pictures that just asked to be taken today.

This is one weird architectural structure. It begged to be photographed!

And this is the bluest roof that I have ever seen....

This next photo just says "Florida - we have arrived!"

Is this yellow enough..it is even brighter than my "Vette"..

Is this really the "Pink Panther" on that smokestack?

I think that the price of real estate is going up....

High rise condos on the north end of Daytona Beach...

More bridges than I wanted to deal with...5 fixed spans and two draw bridges in 2 miles as we entered the Daytona Beach area from the north...BTW, there is one more that we will cross under tomorrow morning.

We finally found a spot to anchor on the east side of the ICW. It was quiet with no other boats. Maybe this is because you have to go a mile south before you can turn to the east..then run a mile back north to a nice anchorage. Here are a few photos as we were just sitting on the boat and getting ready to close up the hatch for the evening.

We are just off of the sea wall from this stunning property to the east..

This is where everyone else decided to anchor..but I have always been a bit contrarian...DUH!

And this is just after sunset, looking off to the west and the racetrack...I was distracted and just missed the sunset by a few minutes...oh well, there is always tomorrow..

Vic and I are both tied this evening. It was a "make do" night for dinner. She had a salad and I made some scrambled eggs..time to reprovision at our next stop.

The plan tomorrow is to make it to Melbourne. We have some good friends there and plan to spend the night with them. It will also be a good chance to do some laundry, get groceries, and just kick back a bit.

Today we passed the 1000 mile mark. We are at 1003 miles give or take...500 more to go...oh, I forgot to mention that we did NOT run aground today!..maybe tomorrow:)....