Daytona Beach, FL

Bill and I decided to stay another day in St. Augustine. We still have over a week to get to Boca and St. Augustine is such a great place. We were up and ready to leave by 7:30 but as we were taking the shore power off, we both looked at each other and decided to stay.

So today, Tuesday, we left for Daytona. We left the dock around 8:00. Today was a strange day. We had twelve -- yes TWELVE -- bridges to deal with. And all went well. Four were open on demand, eight were fixed 65 footers.

The stranger part of today was the VERY dense fog that we experienced until about 11:00. The fog was so thick at parts that we could see no more than 100 feet (or two boat lengths) in front of us. For most of the morning there was a caravan of six boats inching our way forward - with Mary Elizabeth slowly navigating the lead before a trawler and motor vessel took over. It is such a strange feeling motoring at 5 knots into nothing but white and trying to find the next marker - especially when the channel is narrow and the depths are shallow. Most of the day the depth finder showed between 10 and 12 feet in the ICW. Eventually the fog lifted and it turned into a beautiful day. The warmer temperatures and sunshine felt marvelous.

We are at Halifax Harbor Marina in Daytona Beach (statute mile 830 on the ICW) for the night. It is another great facility; very helpful staff and, surprisingly, liveaboards! Part of our trek south via the ICW has involved scoping out where we will eventually want to live. We were surprised to find out that the state of Georgia does not allow liveaboards at all. And we have heard mixed things about (the rules, taxes, impressions of) living aboard in different parts of Florida. Bill and I chatted with a liveaboard here in Daytona (a fellow pilot, nonetheless) and he had great things to say.

Another cool thing about today was that we were in a "manatee zone" for most of the day. We didn't see any manatees, but we certainly kept an eye out. Maybe tomorrow.... Tomorrow we will be in Cocoa, FL where we will meet up with my uncle and his family for dinner. Yeah!