As I mentioned yesterday, we survived our first tropical storm. We arose with the sun and enjoyed a nice cup of coffee on deck while discussing our plans for the day.

We left Palm Cove Marina and started north. We crossed the St Johns River at Jacksonville, passed through the Sisters Creek Draw Bridge and continued, you guessed it, NORTH.

 



When I took this picture I thought it would be fun to tell you how powerful it feels to have a bridge open for just our little boat.   The convention is that when you get within a few hundred yards of a bridge to say something like what we did for this bridge through the portable marine radio: "Sisters Creek Bridge, Sisters Creek Bridge, this is the northbound sailing vessel Tumbleweed Too requesting an opening."  The bridge operator replies what his plans are and usually pretty soon, the bridge opens and we go through, stately as a queen.

About 3 hours into our 6 hour trip to Fernandina Beach, we ran aground again!!! However, in self defense, we realized there was a temporary channel marker ahead in the distance, but before we could move to the port and go around it we were in 3 1/2 feet of water and the keel was augured in. Nothing we could do was going to get us out of this one. Soon, after we grounded, another boat which was a cruiser without a keel came by and made it though. However, within a few more minutes we had another, what appeared to be a cruiser, come heading straight for the shallow area. Not knowing if they had their radio on, I tried to signal them by hand there was a problem here. Apparently, they didn't see me or they ignored me and they plowed into the sand bar too. We later learned they had a 5 foot draft, which is 6 inches more than ours. By this time, we had called the tow boat service and one was headed our way with an ETA of one hour. Nancy said, time for lunch, so we settled in to wait.

Fortunately for us, the tow boat operator was an industrious, hard working young fellow, named Lee, who worked for about 2 hours getting us ungrounded. He actually had to tie to our boat and use the prop of his motor to move the sand from under us. He also took our anchor out into the channel and we used it as a helper taking up the slack as he made each little foot of progress.

The other grounded vessel called a tow boat out as well and their fellow seemed to be a lot less enthusiastic about getting them off, so he just hooked a line to them and waited for the tide to come back in and pulled them out. They arrived in Fernandina Beach about 1 1/2 hours after us, right at dusk.

Our thanks go out to Lee for his efforts and his courtesy toward us. It's nice to see there are still a lot of young folks in this world who are polite, hard working and respectful of their elders.

Lee did say that this area, since it is not well marked by the USCG, is a common area of grounding and he pulls people off regularly. We laughed about the fact that he had created a whole new channel by moving so much sand from under us, that the Coast Guard could now move their marker.

After all of this, the balance of our trip to Fernandina Beach was uneventful, except for a few butt clenching moments when the water depth within the channel markers fell to about 5 feet.

We're now mooring across the channel from the Fernandina Harbor Marina and we'll soon be going into town for breakfast and a little exploring. We understand they have a Farmer's Market in town so we'll be shopping for some fresh fruits and veggies.

We understand that, at least at one time, Fernandina Beach was the center of the shrimp industry on the Atlantic Coast. We're nor sure if it still is the center, but there are a few shrimp boats tied up along the channel.  We're hoping we run into Forrest Gump in town. Oh wait, I forgot, he's over in Louisiana!!!!

We hope everyone has a great weekend!!!