A different birthday

Today we got an early start, like most days recently.  On the agenda was going  through one stretch of the ICW that has the reputation of being the shallowest spot between Norfolk and Florida.  At low tide/water the waterway is 3 feet deep!  Luckily there is about an 8 foot tide, so you  plan your transit of the problem spots with hide tide in mind.  We were going to do one problem spot today, stop early for a relaxed birthday afternoon, and then do a second shallow area tomorrow.  Once we got through the first shallow section - seeing 8.8 feet as the low - we realized if we didn't also do the second low spot today we would have to wait until noon tomorrow to have enough water.  We made it through the second problem area with no problem, but the anchorage we were planning to stop at didn't work out for us because of the wind direction.  We made it into a well protected anchorage just at sundown, though we don't really like to cut it that close.

We got to motor-sail a lot today.  We also sailed just a bit on St Andrews Sound which opens directly to the ocean.  We also saw several shrimpers, one of which I think had run aground.  And right now Sue is baking a chocolate cake, though she tells me it won't have frosting, and we won't have ice cream!
We just finished the cake - with sliced,cooked apples for a topping.  Pretty tasty!!

Yesterday we slowed way down to make a 9:00 bridge opening.  We were idling around waiting the last few minutes before I called the bridge tender to request an opening.  It turns out since it was Veteran's Day, a federal holiday, the bridge would have opened as soon as we got there.  I guess it pays to always read the fine print.  And even missing that bit of information about it being a federal holiday, I still felt better than the guy who called on the ship's radio asking when high tide was so he could time his transit through "Hell Gate" - another notorious shallow spot on the ICW.

Once again we are in a remote area without enough signal strength to load pictures - maybe tomorrow.