Friday, March 21, 2025

To Fernandina Beach

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





I overshot the anchorage and backed up to anchor.  About an half hour later,Keith anchored east of me. Keith and I  went into town, walked around and had Raw Oysters and Shimp and Grits at the Crab Trap.  Food was excellent, 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 could not see AIS on his chart plotter.  In fact, no NMEA data could be seen on his Axiom 7.  Network seemed to be wired correctly.  

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



Wednesday, March 19, 2025

To Little Sister creek

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

Easy motor run, arriving at 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 and introduced him to use 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….










Monday, March 17, 2025

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 did not want to wait until 11 to get a mooring ball, so I dinghyed into St Augustine Marine Marina, got rid of my garbage, updated some iPad movies and walked to Sailors Exchange to look for more junk for the boat.  Got a new Hella anchor lite and another new RAM 3 mike for the cockpit.  This one worked.  Had a tour of the town, had 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 and potatoes and onions.

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

















Snode Creek to Dowry Creek anchorage

The morning was cold at 12 C.  Did not want to get out of bed.  Evenually I got out, made Bacon and Eggs and departed at noon.    I could on...