May 2nd

May 2nd. We’re underway again and we’ve picked up another buddy boat. Rick and Linda own a 41 foot catamaran christened “Bedazzled”. This is their first year living on their boat and they will be traveling with us as far as Beaufort, South Carolina.

We left Saint Augustine at 0730 and headed out the inlet and into the ocean. The trip to Fernandina Beach was about 55 miles with 50 of it out in the ocean. The forecast was for 10 to 15 knots of wind out of the east and as we turned north we got 4 knots from the northwest. Stupid weathermen. It was an entire day of motor sailing with the wind finally clocking around to the east after lunch. The winds did build later in the day to almost 6 knots.  There are large brush fires in southern Georgia and as the winds clocked from west through north to east the smoke over the land was something to see. We were only 5 miles off and everything on shore was hidden in a blanket of smoke.

Fernandina Beach has just put in a mooring field where we had anchored 5 months ago. Its only 15 dollars a night and that includes dinghy dockage and the use of the showers if you desire.

The town is really nice and a 30 minute walk down Main Street and back yields a lot to see. On the other hand though, when you’re in the anchorage the shoreline is dominated by 2 huge industrial complexes. One manufactures noise and filth while the other one produces stench and pollution. I think they’re some type of paper mills but what a pall of unhealthiness they cast over this beautiful little town. We were sitting in the cockpit after sundown when Christy said “let’s go below, I feel like we’re catching cancer”. When we got up the boat was covered in dew, filthy dew. The boat was covered in grime, it was disgusting. The town is really nice but we’ll never be back.