June 14-23,2022 ICW from Ft Pierce, FL to Brunswick, GA

 6-14 Tuesday. We decided to stay put another day to let me sleep. I started feeling better, but was still tired, achy and had a temp.  
6-15 Wednesday. We left the anchorage at 9:45 and made the bridge opening scheduled for 10:00am. We headed north on the ICW.  I didn’t have a temp today, but I was still coughing and tired.  We anchored at 4:00pm at Melbourne, FL an Paradise Blvd off the east side of the ICW.  We averaged 7.3k today.  Must have been moving with the tide.  We called Brunswick landing marina because we have a reservation starting today.  We wanted to let them know we were still coming but would be late because of having covid. 

6-16 Thursday We knew it was just a matter of time, but today Dave had the same symptoms I had.  We decided to just stay put for awhile.  Dave was 100º and I was now 98º.  I made a cold oriental salad for dinner, too hot to cook.  
6-17 Friday Today both of us had normal temperatures.  We were still taking on water under the engine, even in calm water.  Dave called the marina again and talked to the dock manager.  Explained that we would be taking our time coming back to be sure we weren’t contagious.  If it was necessary, start charging us to hold our slip, which they did.  
We left the anchorage at 11:15.  Dave was amazed at the amount of grass that came up with the anchor.

There was a rocket launch today at 12:00pm from Cape Canaveral.  It was Spacex Falcon 9 Starling to launch satellites.  We were about 15 miles from the launch pad. I had a long boring video and just selected a couple shots from that video.  This is the first launch we’ve seen from our boat in all the times we have passed by this area.
We anchored on the north side of the Space center causeway in Titusville, FL at 3:00.  Keeping the days short.

little white speck to the left of the clouds

white streak is the rocket

6-18 Saturday We continued north on the ICW today.  We anchored in the Ponce de Leon inlet north of New Smyrna Beach. It was a narrow channel and our boat swung 180º with the tide.  There was lots of boat traffic because it was Father’s Day weekend.  And we had forgotten about the Monday holiday for Juneteenth.  A Dolphin adventure tour boat passed us on our port side while there were dolphins on the starboard side of our boat.  Crazy tourists.  
6-19 Sunday.  We left the anchorage at 9:00.  There was crazy boaters all day along the ICW.  Everyone was on the water celebrating Father’s Day.  We made it to St Augustine Municipal Marina and rented a mooring ball for 2 nights.  We had to go to the dock office to check in.  I had pizza and wings delivered to the dock for our Father’s Day dinner.  
6-20 Monday. We moved the boat to the fuel dock late morning during slack tide.  The current can be very strong in this area.  We refueled, had our heads pumped out and got rid of our garbage.  Then we moved back to the mooring ball.  We considered taking the dinghy to shore for groceries, but it was very windy and we were still tired and recovering.  So stayed put.


6-21 Tuesday Dave had a relapse of coughing last night and didn’t sleep well.  We decided to stay another night.  We had the 3.5 hp outboard on the dinghy and changed it to the 20 hp.  We needed it to fight the current.  We use a motor davit to lift the 20hp motor off the motor mount and onto the dingy.  While we were doing this, we heard a noise but didn’t see that anything had changed.  After the motor was on the dingy, I was reeling in the lift line and a bolt at the bottom of the arm fell into the water.  That could have been much worse.  We decided to just leave the motor on the dinghy the rest of the way back to Brunswick and fix it later. 

After stopping at the dock office to add another night, we took the dingy to a public dock at Vilano Beach which is south of the inlet.  We had lunch at Beaches restaurant which was just OK.  The fish was overcooked in their fish tacos.  Next we walked to the Publix grocery store for a few things to get us back to Brunswick.  
On our way back to the boat we saw Barefoot Pete from Brunswick Landing Marina on the ICW on his sailboat.  He was single handling his boat, so he asked if we could meet him at his mooring ball and help him tie up.  After visiting, we returned to the boat and rested.  Later we walked across the Bridge of Lions for the first time.  After crossing back, we had a drink at the A1A bar right on the corner by the bridge.  We had never stopped in this bar.  They had live music scheduled everyday in the late afternoon-early evening.  Great time for us cruisers.  We were treated to a beautiful sunset in St Augustine.

north mooring field, our boat is on the end of the row in front of the big power boat

tourist pirate ship tour

we're on the Bridge of Lions

this restaurant has been under construction for a few years

 6-22 Wednesday. We left our mooring ball by 9:15 to make the 9:30 bridge opening.  In placed of heavy traffic, the bridges open on a schedule, not on demand.  We stayed on the ICW today.  There were a couple of shallow spots where I touched bottom while at the helm, but we were never stuck.  We anchored at Cumberland Island by 6:30.

always interesting to see the boats in Jacksonville as we pass by

wild horses on the shore at Cumberland Island

this ship was heading into the Naval base at Kingsland, GA

 6-23 Thursday We left at 9:30 and passed Jekyll Island slowly at 1 hour after now tide.  It’s very shallow here, but if we got stuck, we would just have to wait for the tide to rise to keep moving.  We made it to Brunswick Landing Marina by 2:30.  We were assigned to dock 13 (we had requested not to be on dock 9 again because of negligent dog owners that were there again).
Pete met us at the marina and we went to Tipsy McSways downtown for wings, French fries and onion rings.  Needless to say, I had stomach cramps later.