The next three days were supposed to be beautiful so we decided to run the outside. We went out the Jacksonville Inlet to the 3 mile marker and headed South. The ocean was flat and beautiful. The only traffic seemed to be shrimp and fishing boats now and then. We really enjoyed the calm feeling that running the ocean provided. Without the bridges, timing for tide and water level, and no wake zones we could run a little faster and just enjoy the ride. We spotted about a half dozen sea turtles but never got a photo. They dive about the time you spot them. At one point I felt as if we were in a sea of jelly fish, hundreds of them everywhere around the boat for about an hour. Unfortunately we also saw at least a half dozen mylar balloons floating. People are always shocked when we tell them about all the balloons we see on the ocean. It aggravates me because the turtles and other sea creatures mistake balloons and plastic bags for jelly fish and of course die following their ingestion. They also get wrapped up in props. Not a good thing for us! We reentered the waterway at St. Augustine. I called tow boat U.S. to check on any shoals in the inlet and was given directions. We changed our heading to enter the inlet and the sun was blinding! Neither of us could read the GPS and Tom was completely blinded. I pulled out my IPAD and verbally guided Tom in using the Garmin App. It was a pretty tense for about 10 minutes. Fortunately two small fishing boats sped around us. He used their wake and my directions to stay in the entrance channel! We arranged to stay at the fuel dock of a marine supply company on the San Sabastion River because they would be closed when we arrived. This allowed us to be first to fuel in the morning. When we approached the fuel dock I thought, No Way, it was a commercial fishing area and we were going to have to fit in between two shrimp boats! Tom was much more confident about getting Laughter in between than I. I was sure we would not fit. But line in hand I went out to the bow. It was an old, and I mean old wooden dock so this was really going to be interesting. Thankfully one of the shrimp boat captains came off his boat and took my line. Tom was able to bring her in nicely and of course we had plenty of room. The captain showed Tom how to tie up to account for the six foot tide that they had in St. Augustine and we were all set for the night. Between the blinding sun and the docking we were both ready to relax.
Thursday morning bright and early we fueled up. Getting off the dock posed another challenge. Two small fishing boats came in with their catch. One in front and one behind us. The one in front had squeezed between the shrimp boat and us and the one behind had tied off the shrimp boat behind. Now we were really penned in. As we backed out I was sure we were going to bump the one behind us but he didn't seem worried at all. As luck would have it there was not much wind to fight so Tom was successful in getting us off the dock without hitting either.
I wasn't kidding it was a pretty rough dock
Our view today
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