Fernandina Beach, Florida...the weather is warmer and more promising tropical paradise

Once you do long miles in good acceptable weather, you come to the point..you want to do more and longer..that's amazing!

We leave Beaufort, South Carolina Sunday, November 14, 10:15 AM. The 2 other boats (Georgia E and Klabara) has head of us because we meet a couple who has similar boat like us, the boat name is Windquest..spend time to see each other boat..mmm interesting!

The passage Beaufort-Fernandina Beach is about 125 nm dock to dock, about 22 hours with average speed of 5.5 kn...with an account of current and tide in both entrances..

The passage was easy, comfortable and beautiful..companied by sunlight, dolphins, sunset, stars and moon..what else do you need?

Sunrise in the entrance of Saint Marys, to Fernandina Beach, look at the crew..snoring away...hahah, the bed must be very very comfortable.. we switch every 2 hours ... with the support crew close at hand in the event of questions and support needs. It works really well.

 This is the old fort San Fernando as you enter Saint Marys entrance. Fernandina Beach is Florida's northernmost city, is on Amelia Island, discovered in 1562 by the French explorer Jean Ribault, who named it Isle de Mai, the Spanish settled the island in 1567 renamed it Santa Maria. In 1702 the British captured the island and gave it the name Amelia in honour of King George II's daughter.

The range marker inside the shoals and breakwaters or Fernandini ... those breakwaters which are submerged at mid to high tide ... some of the concerns of planning routes, passages through "skinny" waters and access points to harbors and inside routes ...

Landing in Fernandini Marina fuel dock .... coffeee in hand and great friends new and old (not age related at all) and everyone happy to have had a very very pleasant overnighter and safe landing in our planned destination. We even had a welcoming party of two from Boatel I, Ted and Dianne Greene (http://www.boatel.ca/).

One of the most important landmarks that we scout for reference later in the day ... the bar .. once the "yard arm" thing happens ... being this early in the day, coffee and beer would not do!

We do preliminary scout around to see what there is in town ... 

... and meet "them" again ... breakfast at "Jack and Dianne" (no not "Ted and Dianne's") ... though I am certain that the Boatel B&B morning fare is more healthy than here ... we do seem to be eating well ... though lost a little weight! We had a great breakfast and continued our scouting out the town.

One of the churches in town .... we get back in to stone buildings ... though not sure where the stone came from ... hopefully not from the ICW ... I thought it was all MUD ... hope so!

We conversed with the locals ... the theme always comes back to PIRATES ... this guy wa photogenic ... he did not move, blink or sneeze ...

Fernandini Beach has some Industry in the puld sector (not really sure what theyare doing with it) but with anchorage coices you can find fresher air (depending on where the predominant winds come from). So anchoring in this harbor added another level of complexity ... currents in the river, tides, winds and SMELL ... so we anchored outside of town about 3/4 mile and dingied into town ...

This is our "parting is such sweet sorrw" party ... can you imagine ... though beers are not on the table yet ... they had specials that night ... Guiness for $2.30/pint and they had another German import for $2.00/pint ... but we behaved ... realy we did. We all had a great time and showed the friendship that can develope in a relatively short time.

Here is the unfortunate part of the travels ... we plannd on getting to Indian River (about 140 miles south of here) ... and out about 6 miles off Fernandini we stopped the engine to check fluids and status (before the sun went down) and found that the engine oil level was rising ... OOPS! That is not a good sign!

Found that there might be water in the oil ... from where not really sure ... so we start sailing back to Fernandini and call ... Towboat US ... thankfully they were out to us in about a hour and brought us through the breakwater (on a dropping tide) and safely put us at dock in Fernandini.

That is the most ifno that we have at this point on this new chapter of the adventure ... so we fly from Jacksonville sometime after sorting out this latest detail on the boat ... thanks to you all for sharing these chapters of our adventure and hope to add more soon.