DIRECTION - SOUTH

January 20, 2013

Yesterday at 7am Its Perfect left the mooring field at the City Marina, St Augustine.  The day was cloudy with light winds & we motor sailed south on the ICW.  Its nice to be moving again.  The going was slow, against the current. We had 4 sail boats moving south behind us & by midday 2 of them had passed us.  Some boats we passed were going the wrong way, NORTH.

I went below & noticed there was no water pressure.  After closer inspection Rod found a water hose that had come apart & with the water pressure on, the entire contents of the water tank was in the bilge.  Hmmmm........  this could be very bad if we were off shore & did not carry extra water.  Because we were both in the cockpit we did not hear the water pump running.  Sinc carry 15 gallons of water on the deck there was no emergency, just an inconvenience.

After more than 10 hours on the go, we dropped the anchor in Daytona Beach just south of the bridge.  The sun went down as Rod put on his headlight & prepared to fix the water hose.  After that was done the water on deck went into the tank & it was time for a hot shower.  Tomorrow will be another long day.

January 21, 2013

We weighed anchor at 7:15am & turned south once again.  Today is partly cloudy & a little warmer, the high 60's. The water temp is 66 degrees.  We are moving faster today, the current seems to be going with us most of the time.

Getting back into the pace of moving every day takes a little getting use to.  We were in St Augustine almost 2 weeks.  Now we have to get up at a scheduled time & be ready to go.  A few more days & it will seem almost normal.

There are more dolphin in the water than we have seen in a long time.  Of course taking pictures of them are not that easy.  If you think that is hard, try taking a picture of a manatee!  We have not seen many on our trip but around noon a very large manatee surfaced right next to the boat. 

The advantage of moving on a holiday is, the bridge schedules are much more accommodating than their weekday schedule.  Today we have gone through 8 bridges, we passed through 11 yesterday.  Timing is everything when it comes to bridge schedules.  We anchored in the Indian River at 5:45pm in 12ft of water.  Tomorrow will be a shorter day.