St. Augustine

The headlines today read “Storms Wipe Out Florida Beaches”. We’re glad we took the ICW to St. Augustine. There are 2 hurricanes followed by a tropical storm out near Bermuda.
As we approached the Ponce Inlet in Daytona, we could see huge breakers all the way inside the inlet. It was an easy decision to continue north up the ICW.
GW Meadows rode with us under one of the many 65 foot bridges in Daytona. Problem was, due to exceptionally high tides, we couldn’t get under some of them until the next day, and then, just made it under at low tide. Here's a pic of our mast just squeaking under a bridge. These high bridges were favored until we couldn’t get under them, so now we like the bascule bridges (they have a bridge tender, and open when you call on the radio) better.
GW loaned us his car to visit the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse. We climbed to the top for a looksee, took pictures, and acted like tourists. (Well, we are tourists). Their museum of Fresnel lenses used in lighthouses was awesome. Those lenses are works of art. GW and Jan had us over for a great lasagna dinner. Rachel and I got a tour of the Just Fly command center before dinner in their beautiful new home. Besides the fortune he’s made in the hanggliding business, he’s something of a real estate tycoon as well. To top all that, he is also the guy who puts the yellow first down line on the field for tv during college football games.
The ICW is very scenic from Daytona to St. Augie. It requires constant vigilance to stay in the narrow deep part of the waterway. But the going is smooth as long as the engine runs well, which ours did. That’s right, days of motoring, and nothing broke! Maybe we’re over the hump now.
Kathy and Rachel are into the swing of things schoolwise. They’re both doing a fantastic job of interacting in the teacher/student mode instead of the mom/daughter roles that they are used to. I was busy driving the boat. (Maybe they’ll let me play teacher soon). Rachel is such a good student that it makes Kathy’s job easy. Rachel reads every spare moment. For school, she’s reading Around the World in 80 Days. She also has another book or two going for “fun” reading.
Yesterday a mom and baby dolphin swam beside us at 6 knots for a long time. They were twisted sideways to get a good look at us. She was probably showing her baby what humans (and a dog) look like, while we were showing our dog what a dolphin looks like up close. This morning we saw our first bald eagle of the trip.
There will be much to see in St. Augie, so we’ll be here a week or two. Several of our family will drive over to meet us here as well, so there’s another fun period ahead.