After our busy stay in the boat yard in Fort Pierce, it felt great to be back on the water and on the move! We slowly made our way up the Inter Coastal Waterway, or ICW, from Fort Pierce to Brunswick GA exploring local communities along the way and getting familiar with our boat systems and electronics as we went. The ICW is generally protected water compared to traveling in the open ocean, and to keep in the narrow channel we mostly motor. Each day, we passed several bridges and it’s always a challenge to plan ahead, researching which bridges are tall enough for us to pass safely underneath and which we have to time just right around scheduled draw bridge openings.

It’s surprisingly challenging to get used to helming a new boat! Absolutely everything works differently than on Sanitas – the throttle, the chart plotter, the autopilot, the AIS – luckily, the previous owners left all the owners manuals behind, so I spent a few hours each day studying up and figuring things out. Capt Mike mostly prefers the “Just hit all the buttons and see what happens” approach 😆 We each learn in our own way, right?

The best part about being back in the USA, is that we get to catch up with friends and family we haven’t seen in person in ages! Our first fun friend meetup was just north of Melbourne Florida where we had lunch with Paul Brickman and his family. We’ve been friends since before Mike and I were married, back when I used to spend weekends at Dewey Beach just after college – talk about ancient history! So fun to catch up over a yummy lunch at Grills Riverside, and we were so grateful to them for bringing us a few groceries.

We took our first day off since leaving Stewart with a beach day at New Smyrna Beach ⛱️ The city has a great “on-demand” bus system. We walked to a stop only about two blocks from the dinghy dock and caught a bus that basically could bring us anywhere we wanted within city limits, so of course I voted for the beach! It’s a loooooong white sand beach with cars allowed to drive and park on it – how weird is that? We walked for miles on the hard sand before haggling over the price of beach chairs and umbrella and enjoying a lovely little picnic on the beach. Now that’s more like it! Now I remember why I bought a boat! I was starting to forget with all those boat projects!

Another couple of days of putt putting along, and we made it to St Augustine.

St Augustine is a beautiful city – the oldest in America – and a $30 mooring ball at the municipal marina is the best deal in town. We explored the historic fort and lovely Flagler College, did a big grocery shopping trip, and went out for ice cream with cruising friends. We even had the chance to connect with sailing friends we last saw almost five years ago in the Bahamas! We had a lovely sushi picnic with Natalia and Andrey on SV Bella Vita under a full moon 🌙