Cruising the ICW - Little River, SC to Marthon, Fl - Cool Change Travels & Adventures: November 28 - November 30 Fernandina Beach to St Augustine

On Monday the 29th the mechanic at the marina pulled Cool Change out of the water to take a look at the damage to our props. Just watching the giant sling lift our 30,000 pound boat up overhead was a sight to see. Bad news - we did have a damaged prop. Good news - it can be fixed and we just happened to have two spares already on the boat, left by the previous owner. So, within about two hours we were back in the water with the spare props in place and the damaged props sent out for repair.

We decided to wait to leave Amelia Island until Tuesday so we could catch a high tide and not worry about the shallow entryway to the marina and warnings of problem areas just to the south on the ICW. While the boat was up in the air we inspected the hull and running gear for damage and barnacles and found no damage from the groundings on Saturday. Our bottom paint has done a great job of protecting us from marine growth. We did, however, find a few places where the peson who applied the bottom paint missed smalll areas around some through hull fitings. We scraped away the few barnacles at those places and from the depth transducers and stainless drive shafts. We found the trim tabs to be completely coated with barnacles because there was no bottom coating on them. The barnacles were easily removed. We also found that there were live oysters growing on the trim tabs and the actuator cylinders. The oysters were quite difficult to scrape off cleanly but Wayne was more determined than the oysters.

To our pleasant surprise, our close friends, Roger and Marcy diverted from a business trip to visit with us just as the boat was coming out of the water. Roger has offered to pick up the damaged props after repair and transport them to Cocoa to meet up with us. Thanks, Rog.

We motored on to one of our favorite cities, St. Augustine, on Tuesday. For $20 the city offers buoys that boats can tie up to near the city docks and we had arranged to have a space on one of these. The hard part was Colleen trying to snag the buoy with a boat hook. Wayne says he did not hear all the cussing and fussing I was doing as I tried to get hold of the buoy loop in bouncy seas and attach it to the cleat on the boat. I told him he might need to trade me in for an agile 35-year-old before this trip is over.

We plan to stay here for three or four nights, motoring in to shore in our dinghy or using the water taxi that runs through the bouy field four times a day.