Sail from St Augustine to Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island

First of all we would all like to say Happy Birthday to Sean!

We set off from St Augustine and went down the I.C.W.

Me at the helm

I was amazed at all of the huge houses which were along side of the I.C.W all with their own jetties for their boats but this was my favourite one:

It was like a mansion it was enormous!

We all enjoyed how easy it was to motor down the I.C.W mostly we all read our books, Sean watched a DVD and it was all very leisurely apart from all of the motor boats that kept speeding past us and causing a huge amount of wake when it was supposed to be a no wake zone to help protect the manatee’s.

We soon arrived a Fernandina Harbour Marina which looked like it was very nice. So once everything was sorted we went and had a look around the small town and went into the palace bar for a drink which was very old in its decoration but was still nice and we went for tea and had been recommended to go and eat at an Irish bar called O’Kanes were the fish and chips were very nice indeed.

 

Alex Penney

St Augustine

When we arrived in St Augustine from the boat we could see the fort and not long after there was a canon fired and it was almost as if they were firing at us!

So we all were intrigued to go and see what it was like.

Castillo de San Marcos Fort

The fort is over 300 years old and has been through many battles but this does not stop the park rangers from shouting at people for leaning on the walls. The walls are made from Coquina which is shells possibly oyster shells we think and they have been compressed together to from a solid brick which when shot at the canon ball is just absorbed by the wall.

There also were many canons and other types of weapons and ammunition all around the fort.

Dad

Also looking around the British quarters were interesting to see how crammed in they actually were for one bunk bed four men were expected to share two in each bed.

British quarters

From the top of the fort it was really nice but very hot there was a good point to it though and that was there were really good views of the surrounding area of St Augustine's.

Top of the fort

View from the top of the fort

For our dinner we came across an English restaurant so we decided to go in and see what it was like.

Sean in the English restaurant

It was very traditional and reminded us all of a typical English pub in how it was decorated.

We then had a quick shop around to get a few presents and other items for ourselves and we came across a very nice shop which sold homemade fudge, ice cream and chocolate and just the smell as you walked past was enough to tempt you to go inside. We ended up buying a block of rocky road fudge which was very tasty but you could only eat a small amount at once as it was slightly sickly.

As we knew we would be sailing tomorrow we all thought it would be best if we were to celebrate Sean’s birthday a night earlier.

We spotted a very nice restaurant called O.C Whites and we all really enjoyed out meals as they were delicious!

 

Alex Penney

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

Cocoa Village Marina – Cocoa, Florida

 

Today was a day to get the final jobs sorted out before we were to set off.

We had a quick drive to Wal-mart to pick up a few bits and when we were there the ice cream was very tempting so we decided to buy some but as we got back to the boat it had all melted in the heat and it was pouring out over the sides, so we had to eat a whole tub between us. Although it was very yummy we all now know why everybody has freezer boxes in their cars.

Jo then had to go and drop the car off which was just in time as we had a bit of difficulty trying to fill the car with petrol, as you have to lift a little lever under the pump.

Jo and I walked up to Hatleys to pick up the fixed battery charger and when we got there we were glad to be in the air conditioning as it was really hot and I slightly burnt my shoulders.

Dad and Sean went to Travis’ to get an American gas bottle as nowhere will fill our European gas bottle. After many trips forwards and back we finally got it all sorted.

 

Alex Penney

Universal Studios – Orlando, Florida

 

Today was an early start eating some breakfast and then setting off to go to universal studios. Jo was the most excited of us all to get there.

Sean & I just arriving at Universal Studios

When we did arrive  it was very busy and there was a lot of tour groups everywhere. But when we paid for our tickets and we were eventually in we went straight to the new Simpsons ride which was very good and totally unexpected for what happens and fortunately we only had to wait 5 minutes in the queue compared to the end of the day where people were waiting 50 minutes.

We then raced to get in to the next showing of terminator 2 3D  which we all really enjoyed as it was quite unusual because it involved some actors which then merged into the 3-D film.

We had a walk around and chose to go onto Twister which was a bit of a let down really but that is comparing it to the Simpsons ride.

But we next queued for quite a while wandering in and out of many rooms for the Mummy ride, when we eventually got on to it was very good. But Simpsons was still our favourite!

We were all getting hungry by this point so we saw a nice Irish bar to eat in and Dad, Sean and I had a burger and Jo had fish & chips.

We continued on to Jaws.

Dad, Me & Sean

Which i got absolutely soaked on as the shark jumped out of the water right in front of where i was sat on the boat.

We next went to queue up for the Men in Black ride which was really interesting as we each had a little laser gun which was to shoot at any aliens we saw during the ride. Sean got the most points on this ride by shooting the most aliens.

Then we passed the kwik-e-mart so we decided to have a look inside and it was filled with lots of Simpsons souvenirs.

At this point we were all very hot so we stopped for a very large ice cream cone before continuing to queue up to go and watch Shrek 4-D which was the longest queue by far.

The new ride which they are building at the moment "Hollywood Rip Ride Rock It looks extremely good and apparently it has the largest vertical fall on it.

We all really enjoyed our day out at universal studios but after all of that walking around and quite a lot of standing we were quite glad to sit down in the car.

Overall the best ride was the Simpsons ride so we would highly recommend going on this one.

For tea we decided to go out to the pizza place as Dad had previously seen they do very very large pizzas.

Sean with large pizza

Dad, Sean and I started with chicken wings and Jo had a caser salad. When the 24 inch pizza came we were amazed.

It took a lot  of eating but we still didn’t manage to eat it all. So we had to take the remaining two slices back to the boat with us.

 

Alex Penney

Cocoa Village Marina – Cocoa, Florida

 

Today we had a walk around Cocoa village as Sean & I had never seen it before, so we went to look at all of the small shops.

We then went on to have a look at Cocoa beach which was very nice, so we decided to have a bit of a walk along it.

 

Sean, Jo & I at Cocoa Beach

We then went on to have some dinner at the restaurant red lobster. But unfortunately we couldn’t persuade Sean to try any seafood, so he stuck with eating chicken. But the rest of us tried lobster, shrimp and crab with our dinner which was very nice.

After our dinner we all wanted to go and visit JC Penney.

  Sean, Dad & I

We all find it very amusing to see as you don’t often see Penney spelt like our last name.

Only Jo ended up buying something from the department store and that was a pair of sunglasses.

When we got back to the boat we decided we would go out for tea. We went to Murdock's which seems to be always busy and not surprisingly as the food there is excellent.

 

Alex Penney

Kennedy Space Centre – Cape Canaveral, Florida

 

After arriving in the early hours of the morning we all got up quite early and set off to go and visit the Kennedy Space Centre.

But first of all we went to go and say goodbye to Scott & Lynn.

Scott, Lynn, Me , Kevin & Sean

 

All of us at NASA

When we arrived we all decided that the first thing we should go on was the shuttle launch experience simulator which is apparently the closest thing to actually taking off in the real thing. We then had a look inside a Shuttle Explorer.

 

  Shuttle Explorer

We then went into the launch status centre where their was a man who was giving a talk all about the Kennedy Space Centre, the International Space station and what the future plans were which involves people going to live on the moon in about 20-25 years and in about 35 years when people going to live on mars, however, it would take 9 months to get there and would leave only 9 months to spend there and then to get back another 9 months. The robot scouts also was showing how it would be to live on mars and how they had achieved all this by sending robots up there to look first.

We then went to look at the 9 ton granite sphere showing the star constellations which just floats on the top of water. It spins slowly around and if your strong enough you can change the direction of which it is going.

 

9 ton granite celestial sphere 

After that we went to the astronaut memorial which commemorates all of those who have lost their lives in the attainment of space exploration. Which made us all think about how they were all extremely committed to their jobs.

 

Astronaut memorial plaque

This was then followed by a look around the rocket garden where there are 8 quite big rockets.

 

  Rocket garden

There was also an opportunity to sit in some of the smaller shuttles. Which we found out it did not have a lot of room inside of them.

Jo & I sat in a shuttle

We then watched a film in the huge IMAX about the International Space Station which we found really interesting seeing how they all lived whilst on the station, but again mentioned how this would help them achieve to finding out how to live on the mars and the moon. We then checked out the a small section which was dedicated to the Hubble telescope showing really amazing photographs which it had taken.

We also looked around the Early Space Exploration facility which was showing all of the very early stages of what happened at NASA.

When we visited one of the many souvenir shops we saw Jim Lovell who used to be an astronaut signing autographs.

We then went on a Space Centre tour on the bus where we saw many things such as: the 7 feet deep track they had built which accommodated moving the shuttles and rockets when they were to be moved on the crawler which must get its name as it travels at only 1mph. We also saw the vehicle assembly building which was very large and the stripes on the flag which are painted on the side of the building are 8 feet wide.

Vehicle Assembly Building

Our first stop was at the observation gantry which we climbed to the top of to get the great views of the launch pad where the most recent shuttle had launched from.

 

 view from 39 observation gantry

The second stop on the bus tour was at the Apollo/Saturn 5 centre which was amazing to see as it was just so big at 363 feet long. We went into the theatre and watched a recreation of the first landing on the moon which was really well thought out.

 

Saturn 5

Recreation of the first moon landing

Also there was a small piece of moon rock which we were able to touch in the centre.

They had also kept the original 1960’s control centres where all of the old computers and other equipment was still there from all of the Apollo missions.

 Apollo mission control

We unfortunately had to miss out visiting the international space station centre as we had to get back to the main visitor complex and we had booked into the IMAX cinema again but this time to watch the Star Trek movie which was really good to watch on such a big screen.

All of this was a very impressive first day for Sean & I in Florida but it  made us all very tired so not long after we got back we were all off to bed.

 

Alex Penney