Atlantic Bridges to Fernandina Beach – 29 nautical miles sailed
The worst atrocity on the ICW would be striking a manatee or a dolphin with your boat. When we left at dawn there was a single dolphin playing in the current below the bridge, directly in SeaLight’s path between the narrow spans. As I moved closer and closer the dolphin remained in place with its dorsal fin out of the water, hovering in the current. I got so close that I could no longer see the dolphin as it disappeared beneath the bow, and I waited for a bumping sound or underwater squeal or dolphin sushi to appear floating behind the boat in a churned mess. But, of course, none of that happened and the clever dolphin simply dove to the bottom as we passed. Dolphins are so fast I suspect they never get hit by the fast-moving powerboats either as they can hear boats approaching from a very long distance and have plenty of time to get out of the way. Manatees, however, are far slower and get hit all the time, which saddens me to the point of tears if I think about it too much.
The stretch of the ICW we covered today was beautiful. The channel snaked and twisted impossibly through immense walnut grasslands, with river rock beaches, green tufts of bushes and trees heroically pulling themselves out of the brown grass prairie, with a blanket of thick overcast sky creating a shadowless world and the high tide providing ample water. I imagined seeing a hungry lion springing up from the grass and pursuing a gazelle across the table-flat horizon, but all I saw for animals were pretty shorebirds, many of them, unmolested, and the occasional dolphin curving out of the dark tea water for a breath.
At one curve in the channel appeared a huge tourist riverboat, the size of a small cruise ship. I steered SeaLight to the far left of the channel, toying with grounding depths, to allow the big girl to pass. An elegant, grey-haired lady in a flowery dress waved to us from her cabin deck as the ship passed and we waved back.
We reached the town of Fernandina Beach around 1 pm and spent a long while looking for an appropriate anchorage. There were many other boats here, but some were anchored in excessively deep water, others in very shallow water, and there were also two mooring fields we had to avoid as it is illegal in Florida to anchor within 100 feet of them. But, with patience, we found a good spot and dug the anchor in hard.
The weather forecast for the rest of the day was not encouraging. 100% chance of rain, with 40 mm expected. We’d hoped to walk the substantial distance to the grocery store to pick up provisions, but the thought of trudging through torrential rains pulling a buggy then having to deal with soggy cardboard packaging didn’t excite us much, so instead we played it safe and remained on SeaLight. It’s also not a great idea leaving a boat unattended in a new anchorage with the likelihood of squalls and high winds. But, as usual, the Storm Radar weather app was wrong and the many squalls coming from the west were all deflected from our area, as if Fernandina Beach had an alien forcefield dome over their town. These squalls then recollected in the ocean east of here, leaving us in a strangely dry circle. We did not see any significant rain until early evening where we had a couple of microbursts, but nothing substantial. Nevertheless, we made use of the time. Ana spent hours working on Newport club stuff and fighting with Microsoft Teams/Onedrive which has recently been losing changes she’s made, immensely frustrating for her. I resealed then defrosted our top loading refrigerator, which had come to resemble a scene from “Ice Age” with four inches of solid, glacial ice built up all around the freezer section, making it impossible to access the pork chops, chicken, and wieners trapped within. With the help of a plastic scraper, Ana’s hair dryer, a large cooler, our wet/dry vacuum, some sacrificial knuckle skin, and a hoppity playlist of songs, I completely de-iced the food chamber over a period of several hours. Ana still wasn’t done her work, so I sliced up our one remaining plantain and made us an appetizer of tostones, which brought us right into dinner of leftover, but re-moisturized pasta, using up the last of our pasta sauce.
Tomorrow, we explore Fernandina Beach.
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