Fernandina Beach
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Upon returning from Cumberland Island yesterday, Estelle made reservations for two mooring balls for us. We left the anchorage around 9am and were connected to the mooring by 10:30am. Coming up the Amelia River to Fernandina Beach, I said it certainly isn’t the prettiest place with several pulp mills and their shipping terminals. However, once into port I found Fernandina Beach quite charming. Unfortunately, housekeeping chores had to be done first, such as laundry and food shopping. With only two washers at the marina, it took three hours to accomplish that task between the two boats. Once we put our laundry in the dryers we headed out for a bit of lunch.
Seabird, who we met in Jekyll Island was anchored nearby and had rented a car for the weekend, because they went down to Cocoa Beach to watch the space shuttle last night. Jim and Jeannie said they saw the shuttle (a flash of light) from their boat at Cumberland Island. We forgot to look. Due to the fact that Bruce and Nancy had a car, it made it very easy to do a good stocking up at a Publix grocery store. We made it to the hardware store with one minute to closing, but quickly purchased what we needed. The last stop was a good seafood store which is next door to the marina for fish for dinner. Into the dinghy it all went and back to the boat all the while trying to deal with rain showers and strong winds.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
We met Jim and Jeannie at the dock in Fernandina Beach later in the morning to walk around and see some of the interesting houses and churches. A cold front had come through during the night and you would had thought we were in Maine, not Florida, by the way we were dressed. Due to being Sunday, the stores opened late and we got a lot of window shopping done but eventually a few purchases.
Estelle decided to move on to Fort George River, but we decided to stay put another night. They want to reach Miami early December and we want to spend some time seeing the sites at some of the upcoming places, so we parted ways. It was sad to see them go. It was almost a month that we had been sailing together. Jim and Jeannie taught us the ways of the ICW as well about off shore sailing. If it hadn’t been for their encouragement, I know we would not have done it by ourselves. The only consolation is that we know that we will see them some time in the future. We wish them safe passage to Belize with Seabird and hope to see them on the trip back.
Later in the afternoon Al and I went back into the town for an early dinner. I have been hungry for pizza and we found
a small restaurant that does wood fire hearth pizzas which were excellent. We were back on the boat by sunset to load the motor and dinghy onto Blue Heaven, readying ourselves for moving down the ICW tomorrow.
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