Thursday we spotted Florida in all its sunny glory! The wind and rain disappeared and the sun came blazing out to greet us.
Factory or awesome water park?
We anchored outside the Fernandina Beach Marina, mile marker 716, and quickly dinghyed to shore. We were greeted by this big birds who act like they own the dock. It was their feeding time and a local fisherman through them scraps, yum!
We strolled around the warm town and we astonished at all the people and cars everywhere. We were back in civilization. No more cold!
We grabbed dinner at the Green Turtle Tavern (not the real one) and even splurged on some fudge, mmmm.
We headed back to our boat and checked the internet, full bars from our anchorage! So that night turned into cockpit internet cafe.
Friday we wanted to visit the town again but it was really windy and the waves deterred us. We decided just to relax and spend the day in bed.
Saturday we awoke to a beautiful warm day, maybe 60! We were supposed to head out that day but we had an extra day to kill so we decided not to leave yet. Now that the weather is so nice we can drag our feet a little and just enjoy relaxing :)
We even opened up our cockpit hatch for the first time this trip and ripped down some of the bubble wrap insulation. It felt good having a cool breeze run into the v-berth.
Later that day Christine was outside and saw a Trimaran coming into port. We had been keeping an eye out for another blogging cruising couple that we knew were close to us, Hans and Laura aboard Knotty Cat. And sure enough it was them so we started waving and yelling toward them. Laura hailed us on the VHF and asked if something was wrong and we just nope this is Bright Eyes saying hello! They were very excited to hear it was us and invited us over that evening.
It was a fun evening getting to talk to another couple experiencing the same things as us. Not only cruising but almost our exact time and route. They have a very friendly pit bull on board named Wilbur who must have smelled our cats cuz he couldn't stop hugging us. After a great evening there we headed to shore for dinner.
Hans and Laura, and Wilbur, aboard Knotty Cat can be found here:
For dinner we googled McDonalds and found there was one about 2.5 miles away so we started walking. We really should have brought our bikes but it was nice out so the walk wouldn't kill us. However once we got to the shopping center we found a Chinese Buffet! I guess we worked up quite the appetite during the walk cuz the next thing we know we have a ton of snow crab legs piled onto our plates. Owell maybe McDonalds at the next city.
One of our many weaknesses
Next up: Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Daytona, and Melbourne!
