Wed Jan 29 - In which retrace our steps at 8 miles per hour

Fernandina Beach to Palm Cove Marina, Jacksonville Beach

 Oh. My. God.  There weren't ghosts in the night... But I woke up to ..... THE WOLFMAN.  Rick has decided that the fact that he has no job and lives on a boat = no shaving...  Lord help me. 

I hate to admit it, because I will be smote (smitted? smitten) from above, but we are much less nervous this time around - we know more, we are careful but we now believe we can do it.  That attitude lasted through pulling up the anchor without breaking a sweat (except for those of us whose job it is to pull up the anchor and wash it down, and then wash down the entire boat) and it was smooth sailing.  For about 20 minutes.  Then Rick discovered that the tachometer was no longer working.  This calculates the RPM and is, apparently, a BIG DEAL.  Those of us who have not really been using the RPM (being otherwise engaged in watching depth, speed, oncoming traffic, boats behind us, no wake zones, slow wake zones, etc) decided NOT to lose our shit. We made soothing noises and Rick found a mechanic at our next stop who will help.

So all was well until we came around a corner to find a railroad bridge in the way.  We anticipate bridges using this mass of equipment (sextant my ass)

but our Active Captain (which is, I remind you, supposed to be 'active' - as in, currant, like Waze) said that the bridge was always up unless a train was coming.  Frantic searching revealed that it was closed for maintenance except for 11-1.  And Jan 29th was the LAST day of this nonsense.  Did I mention that we got going early (of course we did) so we got to the bridge at 9:30am.  Grrrrrr....  We did some circles and then decided to go back a few paces and anchor.  This resulted in accidentally getting in to 1.5 ft water (ha HA - I was NOT driving), lots of dithering and finally putting the anchor (freshly cleaned I might remind you) BACK DOWN.  Whereupon I looked up to find that the maintenance guys had opened the bridge, gotten in their truck and driven off.  #^((%((@*#*#*#*#

Stupid bridge

Anchor back up and away we went.  Arriving, AGAIN, in Jacksonville Beach - this time by boat.  We like the marina very much - not fancy, but great people.  It's a big dry storage facility - holds 500 boats:

Not something you see every day

 The marina also has the escape boat prop used in Captain Phillips:

We were happy to have a place to get fuel and a hot shower becuase IT IS COLD.  Even with the heater on - it's warm for awhile, then blows cold air.  Another thing for Rick to fix.  Usually we are fine, but tonight we were cold.  We were also hoping to see Faithful Reader Kim, for dinner - but she was a no-show.  So we will have to come through again.

We talked the marina in to putting us on an inner slip (usually the face dock is the best a transient boat can hope for) so we were sheltered from the wind that Mr. Weather accurately predicated....  He might be hirsute, but he's well informed...