Amelia Island

We left St. Augustine this morning about 8 AM and traveled another 65 mile day. When we rounded the inlet at St. Augustine the current was on our nose and we were going about 3 1/2 knots after we turned we were doing about 7 1/2 knots. It was quite a sleigh ride until we hit the tide going out. Tidal changes do make it interesting navigating the ICW.

The winds were high today, we clocked gusts at about 28 knots. The boat was heeled all day without the sails. The ICW was choppy but the ocean had 6 to 8 foot waves, glad to be on the inside. We traveled sections new to us after we crossed the St John River. Where we are now we missed on the way down, we traveled outside.

The picture is of the train bridge that closed when we were about to go under the high fixed bridge. We had circled around for about an hour waiting for the tide to rise enough for us to enter the channel at Amelia island. The channel to the marina has a low depth of about 3 1/2 feet and we draw 4'11". It was low tide when we would arrive so we hung back to stall for time. While we waited we did something we have never done, we took turns going below and showering. It was getting late and we were anxious to go to dinner at shore so we saved some time by taking showers underway. It was like a comedy of errors when the bridge closed with out warning after waiting for an hour for the tide to rise. Dinner was good and with the wind still howling we are glad to be tied to a dock.