Brunswick GA to Richmond Hill GA

The scenery on the ICW has changed, we are now in Georgia, and it feels and looks like we are back on the river system. Gone are the magnificent homes and boat docks along the way. Instead we have seen many birds, and even some wild horses on Cumberland Island.

The last two days we have spent traveling, going approximately 50 miles a day or about 6-7 hours on the water.  Today we should reach Savannah.  We will be spending about 5 days there, our nephew Frank, and his girlfriend Olivia will be driving down from Macon to join us. Looking forward to having a grea time with them.

Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island

Fernandna Beach will be our last stop in Florida.  I can't say that it warmed up much during our 5 month stay in the sunshine state, but true to it's nickname, it was sunny 95% of the time. 

Three days in Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, and now it's time to move on. We enjoyed visiting this old town, the second oldest in Florida, St. Augustine being the oldest.  The downtown area is next to the marina, so everything was within walking distance.  Except for the beach, it is next to the ocean which is on the east side of the island, and the grocery store.  I've been asked by a few people where is, and what is the ICW?  It is a waterway, often with a river name for the different areas it goes through. The ICW runs between the mainland and a strip of barrier islands, on the other side of the barrier islands is the ocean. So we are basically travelling in a river, not the ocean as we move along the east coast.

I can't complain about the views, sometimes I can't get the whole house in the picture, they are spectacular.

This next group of pictures are from the town of Fernandina Beach, views of the retail shops, and historic homes.

Walking around the docks we met Kurt and Lynda, they dock at this marina, their boat, Ready Oar Knot III,  is also a Carver.  We had great conversations with them, and Lynda offered to take us on a grocery run.  That was a terrific help.  Thanks again Lynda & Kurt, we enjoyed getting to know you both.

St Augustine, FL The Nation's oldest city

The trip down the ICW from Cocoa  to  St. Augustine was picturesque, we saw some very large yachts, beautiful homes, an occasional dolphin, lots of fisherman, and the coastguard.  The coastguard was pulling boats over and boarding them.  We had heard them on the radio, and knew they had boarded the 3 boats behind us, so when we saw them approaching us, we assumed we were next.  Not the case, they passed us up and checked out a fishing boat ahead of us.  No excitement today.

St. Augustine has existed for 444 years, founded in the 16th century, in 1565.  This city has seen endless calamities, including fires, floods, destructive storms, and wars.  St Augustine has survived and now flourishes in the 21st century. We took the trolley ride thru the city and got a history lesson as well. The marina is in the heart of the city, right on the ICW, also called the Matanzas River in this stretch. There are numerous restaurants on every street, it's a tough choice where to eat. 

A city this old has to have a historic fort, here are some pictures of the Castillo de San Marcos.

Thursday  was a chore day, at least for half the day.  We had dinner at Harry's, a seafood restaurant, excellent food.  A competitive game of putt putt golf rounded out the evening.  Tomorrow will be a travel day, the weather should be sunny with temps in the mid 70's, and winds around 5 knots. Tomorrow is also our oldest son's birthday. Happy 31st Birthday Dan!

Cocoa

Cocoa was another wonderful small town, it was also the home of Jeannie in a bottle and her astronaut master from the TV series  "I dream of Jeannie".  Located between Cape Canaveral  Air Force Base and the Kennedy Space Center, Cocoa and its neighbor Cocoa Beach quadrupled in size when NASA launched its space program in 1959 at Cape Canaveral. This sleepy town got its first taste of tourism from the thousand of visitors who traveled to see the space launches.

Cocoa City Hall

Cocoa Village Marina

Rich and Jeanne drove up from Hudson Florida, 3 hours away, to spend some time with us. Here we are at Normans restaurant, thanks again for lunch Jeanne and Rich.







                                                 
                                              More awesome homes along the ICW

We stayed at Cocoa for 2 nights, while there George & Kathy on "MV Spey" came into the marina.  We met Kathy's brother Paul, who was visiting them. Beverages and great conversation were enjoyed by all  of us aboard their boat.  Hoping to connect again somewhere along the way.

Marilyn, Sheron and Sue, thanks for your comments, it is always so nice to hear from you.

Vero Beach is a pretty cool place to spend some time.  They have a wonderful bus system that goes through and around town, and works on donations.  There is a box upon boarding and you put in what you want, and if you can't put anything in, that's ok too.  We took the bus to the beach area and into town to do some shopping.  The weather has been sunny, mid 70's, and very breezy.  We will head out tomorrow morning for Cocoa, it will be about 6 hours on the water, that's a long day. There should be some interesting scenery, of which I will take pictures to post.

It will definitely be difficult to leave this town, that is why they call it Velcro Beach.