Sunday, January 27th

So we are off once more. Today, we will travel back up the St John's to Palatka, spend the night and continue on the St. John's tomorrow. We do not plan on stopping anywhere as we have a deadline. I found out on a wed site that NASA is launching a TDRS satellite on Wednesday morning from Cape Canaveral and we are hoping to arrive in time to see it. It is approx 259 miles by water so we have our work cut out for us. If we make it in time let us hope the weather is OK as any signs of bad weather and these launches are cancelled/canceled.

We spent the night in a creek north of Palatka so were not disturbed by vehicles crossing a draw bridge like we were in Astor. We left before sunrise this morning and saw a wonderful sight. A bald eagle flew low over the water towards the boat, stuck out his talons and missed his catch. He did this 3 times and on the third try we saw him catch a good size fish and take off with it. Gary took a couple of photos but unfortunately we had the wide angle lens on not the telephoto. We will try tonight to zoom in on the eagle to show you a little on what we saw.

Well, today was uneventful perhaps even boring. The weather was cool and over cast and very little wildlife to be seen. Perhaps tomorrow will be better.


Monday, January 28th

"Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day"

Oh boy, you could not have wished for a better sunrise. Yes, I have got up twice now to see sunrise. Does that surprise you, cos it sure surprises me?

The sunrise was absolutely spectacular. It compared with seeing the sunrise over Grand Canyon. The moon was still in the west so I even took photos of moon set. The only drawback was the millions of midgies causing me to have to wear a coat. I sat just outside of the cabin on the starboard side just enthralled with the lovely colours/colors. It is funny, many times in my marriage I have asked myself how I have been so luckly to lead the life I lead. I was never the prettiest, cleverest or slimmest girl growing up so how was I lucky enough to "snag" Gary? Who would ever believe I would be taking a trip like this?  Oh my gosh, I think I am having a "Hallmark" moment. I cannot wait until tonight to look at my photos.

The day continues to be an exciting one because we saw two pairs of dolphins. I took a picture of one pair/couple!! but it was not the best of shots. I think we should see more and I will be better prepared next time.

 You are probably sick of bird photos but here I go again with some of my favourites/favorites from today.

Just a little tidbit about pelicans: there are two types brown and white. They differ not only in their colour/color but the way they fish. The brown pelican dives whilst the white pelican works as a group rounding the fish up on the water until they are collected in the middle of the pelican ring, then they feast.


The next photo made me laugh. I had always heard that if a bird poops on you it is a sign of good luck. Well, this family have enough luck for everyone in their town!!!!! Mind you, I do not think they are very lucky when it comes to cleaning up their pier or should I say "poop deck" ha. ha. ha!!!!

Passing St Augustine was interesting. St. Augustine is the oldest occupied city(1565 by the Spanish) in the US. There was an old fort and a very pretty harbour/harbor. There was also a replica of one of the ships used by the immigrants in the early 1600s. Due to our deadline to meet the launch at Cape Canaveral we did not have time to stop but hope to do so on the way back home.

Well, all good plans go astray. We were stuck for 2 hours at a bridge that was being worked on. When we finally got to go under it, the bridge master told us to go through very slowly due to all of the equipment underneath the bridge and in the water. We made it through without any problem but it put us 2 hours behind schedule.

We spent the night at Daytona and had a wonderful sunset to welcome us.

To finish this blog I would like to say happy birthday to my good friend, Julie and her daughter Lindsey. I hope you both had fun filled days. I would also like to say a big thank you for the feed back I have been getting about my blog especially from my Mother-in-Law. She has kept me on my toes to keep me current with my writings.