florida!

after the saga of the "drag queen" at cumberland island, we up-anchored and left.  it was foggy but we thought it was lifting and that it would be gone before we got back down to the st. mary's river.  we were WRONG.  however, we crossed the shipping channel carefully and just like that, we were in florida.  as we motored by fernandina beach, we saw a number from the SAIL rally fleet in fernandina beach's mooring field - all of them still asleep.  well, we were the only crazy ones moving around in the fog, i guess.  there was one more ICW trouble spot to negotiate and by the time we got there, the fog was gone.  that section was no problem.  however, because nothing is ever easy, the next thing was the sheriff's boat that came up beside us and they said they were coast guard doing random inspections.  they had no intentions of boarding, just wanted to ask a few questions.  they saw the MD sticker on the boat, asked about the documentation and our hailing port of deltaville and also asked to see tom's ID.  tom was extremely helpful and cheerful, which, if i were the one doing investigation, would find highly suspicious, but that is just me.  he could not simply answer questions, but was just being chatty cathy and making me nuts.  the whole time i was thinking TMI, TMI, TMI (too much information) and i finally whispered, "tom, shut up!"  sigh... but as a friend of mine said about her husband - "he who speaks in paragraphs...."  that is my tom - what i can say in three words, he can stretch out to three paragraphs.  in any case, while tom was out on the side deck passing his ID over to these guys, i took over the wheel because... hello???  crabpot!  so they separated from us and then came back.  but it happened a second time with another crabpot and i was starting to get cranky and said something to the effect that there were four of them on that boat and no one was watching for crabpots?  i know, i will get into trouble with the law one day....  in any case, consuelo made an appearance so yet another topic of conversation that had nothing to do with anything.  they finally let us go seeing as we didn't seem to be criminal material.  "have a nice day and stay safe."  total WASTE of time, if you ask me.  

around noon, we stopped at a free dock just before the st. john's river to let consuelo out.  i had been nervous because she got fed TWICE that morning what with the confusion associated with the dragger and lack of evidence that she had already been fed since apparently tom only gave her the dry dog food and did not put in the canned, i.e. no used fork in the sink.  in any case, i walked consuelo while tom waited by the boat and left the engine running.  i say BY the boat instead of ON the boat because he had to get down and chat with other boaters who were tied up there.  in any case, we eventually left and crossed the st. john's river.  i looked wistfully upriver - that was the way we were originally supposed to go before our plans got derailed by the SAIL rally. 

our plan had been to anchor somewhere before st. augustine and get to the marina the next morning but tom decided that we should push on a little beyond the anchorage to the camachee island marina where mark and diana were, saying that it would be more convenient not to have to drop the dinghy, etc. etc.  i had no objections, however, he miscalculated.  when he called the marina to say we would be there in ten minutes, i looked at the chartplotter and thought to myself - i don't think so!  in the meantime, the fog was getting thicker.  we couldn't go any faster as we were stuck behind a small cruise ship that was meandering down the ICW and we had the current hard against us and because we can't really go that fast to begin with.  when the fog really rolled in, we were glad to have that cruise ship in front of us.  not only was it getting foggier, but it was getting alarmingly darker! 

the vilano bridge came up all of a sudden!  if you've ever been in fog, you know what i am talking about.  the marina was before the bridge so we had to make an abrupt right turn into the marina's channel.  the current was ripping through there so it was a bit hairy until we got into the marina basin and the current shut off - just like that! 

i was up until 2:00 a.m. that night working and doing five loads of laundry.  it is unbelievable how dirty this boat is and it is making me cranky.  anyway, the original plan was to be at the st. augustine municipal marina the next day but  there was talk of staying at the camachee island marina one more day and then moving to a mooring ball at the municipal marina.  of course, as i should have predicted, the plan has changed again.  in the meantime, i have a ton of things to do to get this boat, consuelo and all our stuff cleaned up.  i should be more excited about being in florida, especially in st. augustine, and i should have been more excited about a whole lot of other things but right now, i am just very tired and i still have a dirty boat.  oh, and i have to go to work - did i mention that?