Jan. 23

We decided to leave the Morales family and the Fernandina Beach to Jacksonville Beach stretch temporarily and try to find smoother water to the South and return when the winds had died.

We spent most of the day looking for a boat ramp that we had both seen on a $50.00 chart at a West Marine Store.  But after driving down every dead end road on both sides of a five-mile long canal that offered the only stretch of water protected from the wind, we finally decided that it did not exist.  With 25-30 mile per hour winds we could not get on the water so we drove down to St. Augustine and found a cheap hotel to use as a base camp for a few days. Good conditions were in the forecast. We had wasted enough gasoline driving around in vain. 

We did stop and walk on the beach on South Ponte Vedra Island in the chilly wind.  We watched a Willet, a bird whose career involved running down toward the water as the wave receded, pecking at a few creatures in the sand with his long beak and running back up the beach as the next wave broke and chased him.  It did this over and over again the whole time we were there and I concluded that we had just visited a small moment in its monotonous daily life.  But, I thought, here I am craving to get back on the water and continue my back and forth movement mile after mile.  I began to understand this new friend Willet.