Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Fernandina - at anchor

And we wait for the railroad bridge to open, and wait, and wait...
We left Sadler Point Marina in good cheer, knowing that the Main Street Bridge wouldn't open until 9:00 am. No problem we thought and started off in time to make the opening. Then we heard over the VHF that the railroad bridge said they would not be opening until noon! It was now about 8:30 am we had a 3 and 1/2 hour wait! Fortunately, there was a free dock by the theater district that we tied up to for the duration. Eventually, the railroad bridge opened after a cluster of orange clad workers buzzed around one end appearing very busy.

This thing doesn't even look like it's in the water - a huge car ship - Panama must have a ton of these things (how do they afford them??)
A flotilla of boats came through (it was the only opening that day) and we finally headed east to the ICW. Along the way we had to stop again to allow an huge ship to turn and start down the river to the ocean, more delays! Luckily, the tide was still rising when we reached the shallow spots which were numerous on the ICW to Fernandina, some of the worse spots on the entire trip.

Finally, a sunset. 
Upon arriving at Fernandina we discovered that they had no moorings available so we just anchored and, in fact, we'll probably be doing that in the future. It's free and you can still use the dinghy dock. Ann has an appointment to get her air cut here, she knows the stylist from last year and then we may stay another night or move on, depends on weather.

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