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| New Smyrna Beach lighthouse |
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| White and brown pelicans |
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| Daytona Beach |
We left Titusville and headed toward St. Augustine. With the passing storm a cold front moved in and the weather was really pleasant, so we thought we would sit on the hook for the next couple of nights. The first day we made it to Daytona Beach. Traveling was not much fun because it was Saturday and the weekend boaters were out in force. That coupled with the shoaling of the channel in this stretch made it a very tedious day. At Titusville we were berthed next to the sailboat
Calypso with Justin and aboard. They are from England and purchased a boat here in the U.S. They planned to cruise various American waterways for the next 2-3 years then sell the boat and return to England. We passed
Calypso just before New Smyrna Beach. Here we had our choice of two routes, the AIWW channel, or the preferred channel through Sheepshead Cut. Capt. Larry started through the cut with
Calypso following. Just past the branch, he decided that he couldn't read the channel markers very well and started back towards the AIWW. Of course this put him outside of the channel and he watched the depthsounder drop down to 1 foot.
Calypso was right behind with a greater draft and how she didn't go aground is still a mystery. We would have felt terrible if she had grounded. In the AIWW channel we never saw depths less than 9 feet, so we still don't know why the cut is marked as the preferred route. We made it to Daytona Beach and secured the boat in an anchorage area.
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| Fort Matanzas |
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| In the sentry box |
The next day we headed toward another anchorage in the Matanzas River. Here there is an old Spanish fort that was used to protect St. Augustine from attacks. Today the fort is a national monument maintained by the National Park Service. We dinghied over to the park to catch a ferry to fort for a guided tour. It was a really pleasant site in spite of the heavy Sunday boat traffic. When we returned to the boat we found two things. First the dinghy seemed a little soft and spongy. Two days later we would discover that we had a cut in two of the three bladders from an oyster bed we had to go over to land the dinghy. The other thing we found was that we were at low tide and, while we had anchored in 5.5' of water, the 4' tidal range had grounded the boat.
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| Cream Puff fully inflated! |
So we did the only thing we could think of- drink beer and wait for the tide to come back in! Jane kept watching weeds disappear as the water rose and Capt. Larry would occasionally take in some anchor rode to keep us off the shoreline. Just as we sat down to have some dinner, we felt the boat swing and we raced to get her repositioned in deeper water. To be safe in the strong current, we set a second anchor and retired for the night.
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| She's not moving with the wind or current! |
The next day we headed toward another anchorage in the Matanzas River. Here there is an old Spanish fort that was used to protect St. Augustine from attacks. Today the fort is a national monument maintained by the National Park Service. We dinghied over to the park to catch a ferry to fort for a guided tour. It was a really pleasant site in spite of the heavy Sunday boat traffic. When we returned to the boat we found two things. First the dinghy seemed a little soft and spongy. Two days later we would discover that we had a cut in two of the three bladders from an oyster bed we had to go over to land the dinghy. The other thing we found was that we were at low tide and, while we had anchored in 5.5' of water, the 4' tidal range had grounded the boat. 
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