Setting off sail to St Augustine from Cocoa Village Marina

We set off at 11.15am heading into the I.C.W this was Sean and mine first time sailing this.

Not long after we set off we spotted manatees and dolphins.

Manatee

We then approached the first lifting bridge that Sean and I was going to go through.

 NASA Canal Barge Bridge

Shortly after we reached a lock which is the first one for Invincible which then meant we left the I.C.W and we entered the Atlantic. That is where a few of the cruise boats were my favourite one was the Mickey mouse one.

Port Canaveral lock

Whilst we were in the lock there was a manatee in there with us.

We eventually got through and out of the marina area and into the Atlantic where we had to go the long way around because there was a reef which made it very shallow but it gave us a good view of Cape Canaveral where we could see all of the launch pads and buildings which belong to NASA.

Along the way there was a possible sighting of the north Atlantic right whale which is the most endangered large whale in the world.

We then got the main sail up and the Genoa up just as the night watches began first on was Dad and I we spent most of our time watching the weather, as there was a lot of lightning which was hitting the land and we were hoping that it wouldn’t reach us. Thankfully when it did get out to see it had dispersed and was nothing more than a little bit of rain, which passed over us with nothing more then a few specks.

Then it was time for a change over in night watch where Jo and Sean who decided to have a look up at the stars as the clouds had cleared and they saw a shooting star.

They also saw the sunrise on one of their watches.

Sunrise

They were also visited by a little sparrow who just had a rest on the guard rails and shortly after flew off again.

Sparrow

Soon St Augustine's was in sight and not long after we were there pulling up into the channel, however, we had missed the bridge opening so we dropped the anchor but 5 minutes later we had to lift it up again as the bridge was opening but it didn’t give us much time to get through as it sounded the horn whilst we were still in the middle of the first bridge. Later on we were informed that they are restoring the old bridge so had to build a new one for the time being which will later on be knocked down which seems pointless really.

After getting some fuel we went and moored up and we were welcomed with a down pour of rain and heavy lightning and thunder.

When it stopped raining we all went and got a shower before we went to explore the town of St Augustine’s.

Our first impressions of it was that it was very nice it has a lot of small shops and art galleries which all have really nice items in them.

Sean in St Augustine

For our tea we went out to a seafood restaurant where Dad and I shared a seafood platter and it was our first time of trying snow crab.

Our seafood platter

Soon after we went back to the boat and straight to bed as everybody was very tired from staying up on the night watches and doing some sailing.

 

Alex Penney