OtherGoose: MOnday December 1

Monday, December 1

So last night around 10:00 pm we drifted off the bottom! We had grounded because the tide went out while we were visiting C-Soul, and when we got back to the boat we spent an hour moving the anchors...ok, Rick moved the anchors. I held the flashlights.

We are at Mile 341 on the ICW. Norfolk Virginia was Mile 0, so it has taken 2 weeks to go 341 miles...not bad at 5 mph!! We could have done it in 3.5 hours in a car but it wouldn’t have been near as much fun!

The Christmas decorations are starting to appear. But something’s missing...oh, I know...SNOW!!! It’s going to be hard to take it seriously this year. Its odd seeing Christmas trees growing beside palm trees!!

This morning was an earlier start than planned. Low tide was at 9:24 so we wanted to get out of there before we were grounded again. One the anchor was up and we were moving it didn’t seem reasonable to drop it so we could have breakfast.

We made it through the “Rock pile”, a place where the banks are eroding and are falling into the narrow channel along with the odd tree! This is also the place where the bottom is NOT sand, but that igneous rock, coquina. [That’s the rock I was talking about...sounds like quinoa, doesn’t it?] It looks like the rock around Jack’s cottage.

Along the waterway there were turtles in the mud ...it looked like a turtle spa and they were none too happy about the heron fishing in their area. There were more houses along the waterway than there were 10 years ago, and they are more “normal” like townhouses. Apparently there are 102 golf courses within the 30 mile stretch.

When we were coming through the Barefoot Landing Swing Bridge, a trawler for Charlesboix, Michigan passed us. She came out on deck and called over that they loved Thunder Bay, especially Kakabeka Falls! Score one for NWO!

We arrived at Barefoot Landing at 11:30 We could go further but...100 stores, 15 restaurants and an alligator pet park [they don’t serve gator bites]. How can we not stay?

It’s 70F and we are in shorts and sandals...finally! We are going to enjoy the walks and sunshine today, because tomorrow it goes back to 58F.

We walked through some of the stores and then got a ride to Walmart for stuff we needed. Tomorrow Rick is picking up 6 batteries for the boat and we can stop fussing about the power supply.

Tomorrow we will move further south after the batteries are installed and see where we end up.