To Fernandina Beach

I departed St Augustine for Fernandina Beach.  Keith and a Canadian on a Trawler helped me depart as the winds were pushing me onto the dock.  

I overshot the anchorage and backed up to anchor.  About half an hour later, Keith anchored east of me. Keith and I went into town, walked around and had Raw Oysters, shrimp and Grits at the Crab Trap.  The food was excellent, the service was good, but the waiter had some rough edges.

On Saturday, we took two dinghies to the dock, walked around, had Ice Cream and coffee. We each went on our way, Keith checked out a book store and I eventually ended up a distillery tasting and a Winn Dixie grocery store, doing groceries and walking back to the dinghy.

I went to Keith's boat for drinks and investigated why he couldn't see AIS on his chart plotter.  In fact, no NMEA data could be seen on his Axiom 7.  The network was wired correctly.  

Keith had purchased a pound of shrimps, which he steamed with Old Bay Seasoning.

To Little Sister creek

 I timed my departure through the "Bridge of Lions", not the "Lion Bridge" as I had first called it, and was corrected by the bridge master. Crossed the bridge at 9AM.  

Easy motor run, arriving at the free dock at Little Sister Creek at 3PM.  I had to dock single-handedly.  Conditions were not as bad as the last time I docked here ... with lots of help.

Walked a little and stayed for an extra day.

I had to tighten the shaft packing again.  I also changed the transmission oil at the same time.

Had some cocktails and went to Keith's boat to look at his charts, where I introduced him to using Aquamap.

I came back to Bellum to update this blog and made a late supper of Ramen with yesterday's sausage.  Same as my brunch earlier today.

Spent two nights here resting….

To St Augustine

 I weighed anchor at 8:10 and headed north to St. Augustine.  

I got some motor sailing in.  Arrived and anchored south of St Augustine mooring field.  

Tuesday morning, I tried calling in for a mooring ball, but Nick was not too cooperative, saying check-in was at 11 AM.  

The winds shifted and had to re-anchor.  I didn't want to wait until 11 to get a mooring ball, so I dinghied into St. Augustine Marine Marina, disposed of my garbage, updated some iPad movies, and walked to Sailors Exchange to look for more items for the boat.  Got a new Hella anchor light and another new RAM 3 mike for the cockpit.  This one worked.  Had a tour of the town, took a shower and returned to BELLUM to find that she was again close to the same neighbour's boat.  I re-anchored.

Made some sausages, potatoes, and onions.

The next morning, I departed north.  Again, the boats swung too close, but I was leaving anyway.