St. Augustine

Fernandina anchorage - don't know the story behind this mast

We started back down the waterway Tuesday, motoring as usual.  This time we had some nice breeze but straight out of the south, aka on our nose.  It was warm and foggy again but the sun quickly burned off the fog.  I was standing behind the helm seat enjoying being on the water, when I heard a small clinking sound.  I thought it might have been my imagination or at most some small object we had run over, so I didn't mention it.  A few minutes later the port engine alarm started screaming at us and all three lights came on.  Pretty surprising since we thought the alarm was not working.  Of course Tom quickly shut that engine down and went to investigate.  It turned out the alternator belt had shredded into several ratty pieces.  He was able to get a new one on in no time at all (my hero!) and we were good to go again.  Lucky for me we have two engines because we were approaching a bridge during the repair operation.  It might have been a little alarming (no pun intended) with NO engine.

We encountered an amazing number of birds and dolphins along the way.  It seemed everywhere we looked there were huge flocks of brown pelicans and their white Florida cousins, and various other interesting birds, not just the usual cormorants and gulls.  And dolphins playing and feeding in big groups.

We were trying to get to the Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine in time for the 4:30 opening.  If we didn't we would have to wait an hour.  It was touch and go for a while, but in the end we had a few minutes to spare.  This lovely ship came through the bridge heading north.  We picked up a mooring ball on the south side of the bridge for the night.  There are not many places left here to anchor.  They've put in four mooring fields around the area, including the place we used to happily anchor.  May be here a few days.  Bad weather predicted.