Back in Florida

11/21-11/22 – We spent another day (Sunday) at the Cumberland Island Anchorage. Gerry had been fighting a nasty cold for the last several days and we decided another day of rest was in order. On Monday morning we decided to press on and headed out of the anchorage well before 8:00. Within an hour we were back in Florida and passing Fernandina. We were entertained for a while by a transmission on the VHF between a vessel from Dubai and the U.S. Navy. It should be noted that there is a huge military presence in this area including King’s Bay which is home to the Trident Nuclear Submarines. When the Navy (Warship 45) called a vessel from Dubai named the Avian Star, the captain indicated there were only 2 on board and that their cargo was 14 tons of paper. However, the Navy vessel kept approaching the Avian Star and the captain got very upset with them and told them to keep away from his boat. As you can imagine, that did not go over well with the Navy and they told the Avian Star to reduce speed and prepare to be boarded. The Avian Star refused and said they were not terrorists and that they were being harassed by the U.S. Navy. Heated dialogue continued back and forth for quite some time until, unfortunately, we were out of range and could not hear most of what was being said. However, we heard bits and pieces from the Navy boarding party as they were inspecting the Dubai ship. (We were never really sure if this was a Navy exercise or a real event).

We spent the night in an anchorage at Pine Island. Gerry did a bit of fishing and even caught 3 fish. He was excited to be back in Florida so he could fish again. He bought a license when we were here before and it was good for 1 year. He’d been looking forward to using it again. As luck would have it, the license was purchased on November 22 right outside of Panama City – so it expired today!!

Departing the anchorage Monday morning

Passing by Fernandina

We saw lots of white pelicans along the way

This is a shot of the current at the Atlantic Beach Bridge.
This is looking forward as we approached the bridge. We
were going through on an ebb tide and the guidebooks
indicated the current could be as much as 5 knots.