Day 9 St Augustine to Fernandina Beach, FL

 An exciting day on the water today.   We left at 0815 after taking on fuel.  Usually we do this when we arrive in the afternoon but it was too windy.  We had an easy day of 57 miles.  We traveled through the rivers of the ICW, lined with many beautiful homes like this one.  After two hours a boater on the radio announced that a railroad bridge across the ICW which is normally open was to be closed every day until 5:30 PM for repairs.  It was a few hours away.    We called the Coast Guard and confirmed the rumors.  We scrambled and determined the best route was to exit the ICW through the St Johns River at Mayport Naval Base
to the Atlantic and come back in through the St Marys 
River and head south a few miles to the Marina.  We 
Checked Sirius weather on the chartplotter and 
determined the predicted thunderstorms were not yet 
building as of noon.  A call to vessels in the ocean 
determined that the seas were as predicted, 3-4 feet and 
winds of 10-15 knots from the SE, which put them on our
starboard quarter.  Not pleasant but manageable. The 57 mile day turned in to 70 due to the ocean passage.  


As we exited we saw a missile cruiser in dry dock.
I did not know the type of vessel but Eddie say the 
number on the bow and googled it.  Soon thereafter it
was announced on the radio that a Sub was departing 
river just behind us. We saw it pass.  This was very
exciting to Eddie has his son Mark is an officer on 
an attack submarine out of Norfolk.

 The quaint revitalized train station in Fernandina Beach also know as Amelia Island.

 While in the ICW we were bitten by what Eddie called Deer flies.  I found the trusty electric fly swatter Debbie had found on Amazon and we had a contest on how many we could kill. They departed quickly.

 As we entered the inlet at the St Mary's River, the heavens opened and lightning strikes were everywhere. The radar helped locate the marks so we came in safely.  .We idled off the marina for 15 minutes for the rain to stop before docking.

After docking we walked into town to visit the sites.  We saw Felix the peanut vendor, a local character.

Before we went to dinner the rains finally stopped and we say a beautiful rainbow over the Marina.