Bruce and Esther's Sailabout

I love Florida! The weather has been in the upper 70's to lower 80's and we are now finally using the air conditioning instead of heaters. We had a great time in Fernandina Beach as Amy, Bruce and I rented bikes to do a bit of sightseeing and go to the beach. We left Fernandina Beach for a long day all the way to St. Augustine, Fl. We were again travelling with the Mary T and Northern Reach. We all anchored just in front of the town, before the bridge and found it to be a quite scenic as the waterfront was all lit up for Christmas. The Mary T and Northern Reach left early the next day to get a dock in St. Augustine as they felt more comfortable leaving the boat for a day of sightseeing on a dock instead of on anchor, especially Jim and Karen as they have the cat to think about. We arranged to meet in town for lunch and sightseeing. Again as the time was short, we chose a narrated open air bus tour. We had met another Canadian couple from Alberta along the route as they were having some engine troubles and asked if we had some oil. Karen and Jim had some and they passed it over to them and later we met up in St. Augustine. We arranged to meet them for happy hour and then to go and watch another lighted boat parade put on by the town of St. Augustine. We watched it from shore with a thousand other people only to see that the parade kept circling our boat on anchor all by itself!
We enjoyed St. Augustine but were anxious to leave and get to Tittusville where we were finally planning on stopping for a month and just relax and enjoy the sunshine. We were still 2 days away so we stopped and anchored in Daytona Beach but didn't get off the boat and then left the next day for Tittusville. The entrance to the Marina was well marked but quite shallow and Jim and Karen kept bouncing off the bottom. Luckily it was just soft mud. This was just the beginning of the bad feeling we were starting to have about this marina. When we finally got into the marina, the docks were a wreck and the marina was dirty and in need of a major face lift. We thought Bucksport was not the greatest but this marina made Bucksport look like a five star resort!! Even the other boats in the marina looked like they were all ready to sink. We then saw the "For Sale" sign in front of the marina and thought to ourselves "this can't be good!" The only good thing about the place was that there was a fresh water creek running into the ocean and because Manatees like the fresh water, there were quite a few Manatees at the docks. Because of the Manatee, the marina has been unable to get any permits to dredge or renovate. Luckily we had not put any money down as we decided that this was not going to work out for us and Jim and Karen were definitely NOT spending Christmas there. We quickly got out the books and started looking for other marinas and making phone calls to see if there were any slips available. We were by this time a bit gun shy and we were afraid to put down a credit card sight unseen. It was not easy finding another marina but we eventually found one another 2 days away on Nettle's Island. It sounded nice and you could walk to the ocean so we booked a couple of slips, took a cab out to dinner and left as soon as we could the next day. We had over a hundred miles to cover and stopped the first night in an anchorage about 50 miles from Tittusville in a anchorage just off the ICW, called Rock Point. There were 2 small islands in front of our anchorage that we could dinghy too which had sand beaches. Two other Canadian Catamarans followed us in and beached themselves on one of the islands. Bruce and Karen went for their first swim off the boat since we met up with them and then we took the dinghy to shore to take a walk and to see the sunset. We met up with the other 2 Canadian boats and got talking to them for quite a while, when we started to here a horn going off from one of the boats anchored in the bay. Ken did not come to the beach with us so we figured that he was getting lonely or wondering what was taking us so long as the sun had been set for quite some time and it was now dark. We decided it was time to head back anyway so we hopped in the dinghy and headed towards the Mary T. When we arrived, Ken was shining the light on the bow for us and told us that he had picked up too swimmers in the water. A young couple had been out for a canoe ride, when their canoe sank and they had to start swimming. Of course they had no life jackets with them! It was a bit of a distance to shore and with no lights on our dinghy and only a 2.5 horsepower engine (that is a bit unreliable at the best of times), we didn't want to take on the responsibility of taking them to shore when we had no idea where we were going. We told Ken to call the coast guard and have them come and pick up the kids as that was what they were paid to do (so we thought). The coast guard refused to pick them up so Ken took it upon himself to blow up his dinghy and put his engine on and take them to shore. Only in the good ole USA!!
We finally arrived at Nettle's Island to find that the marina was exactly what we had been looking for! The people are very friendly, there is a nice tikki hut that all the boaters can get together for happy hour and dinners, it is only 5 minutes to the beach and it is a nice island and area to ride your bikes around. The only setback is that the grocery store is a bit far away and the marina is renovating the washrooms and laundry room so there is no laundry here until the middle of January! Not really a big problem for us as we have rented a car for a few weeks. We don't even have to take our own garbage to the bin as we have Andrew who does it for us for $.25 a day! There is a small grocery here as well as a bakery, restaurant and hair dresser. Bruce even got a $10.00 hair cut that looks good! We ate at the restaurant the first night we were here and it was fantastic. There are a lot of live-a-boards here so there is already a planned Christmas Day Brunch and a New Year's Day potluck dinner. We have done a bit of exploring by car and hit 2 flea markets and farmers markets today that had some great stuff. Lots to see and do in the area so Karen and Jim shouldn't get too bored sitting around the beach all day (poor guys) while we go home to the snow and the cold! The Mary T has also booked in for 2 weeks so will probably spend Christmas here also.
This will be my last blog until the new year so Bruce and I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a very happy and prosperous New Year. Talk to yo' all next year!