St. Augustine to Fernandina Beach, ball

We're experiencing a very weird weather pattern: Calm winds and waters in the morning, then crazy high winds by the time we reach our destination. Today was no different. We thought we'd stay in St. Augustine for 2 nights because there were reports of strong storms for 2 days. When we woke this morning to calm conditions, we said go. Now the reports are for the next 2 days... so we'll see.

There's a free dock in Jacksonville in Sisters Creek just after you cross the Jacksonville inlet. It wasn't full but if we had to wait for 2 nights somewhere, we'd rather to that in Fernandina Beach. 

Bad weather does give dramatic skies.

We'd been in Fernandina before a couple of times. The first was on Cat-n-Dogs when we looped. At that time the marina was closed from hurricane damage so we anchored out and "illegally" dinghied the dogs to shore. The following year we were here with inQuest, but Covid had the town shut down. Today we arrived around 2:30 pm today with 25 mph winds. The water was decent for a dinghy ride to the dock, but the threat of rain made us just eat in. Not looking for a downpour while in the tender. Storms have been coming and going all afternoon.

Yay, my cilantro is sprouting!

Russ needs oil filters for the engines. He ordered some from a boatyard near here. Tomorrow he'll take the dinghy to get them. Then we'll watch the weather, and make the decision to keep moving or stay another day.

By the way, if you're wondering why we're doing so much mooring ball nights when it's not been a favorite of ours, the answer is "practice." We have made the decision to go to Maine for the summer. (Woo hoo!) We're told many marinas have mooring balls, and anchoring might not be an option (rocky bottoms are tough to anchor in). So... we get ready.