Jan. 25

We were back where we interrupted our journey yesterday by 9:00.  We had intended to eat breakfast on the way but never found any place suitable.  I ate a “breakfast bar” while walking back from parking the car.  We pushed off into a current slowly flowing toward St. Augustine and I started a nice pace, which I was able to keep up for two hours. Few boats on the water, bright sun, no blister problems and a light wind made it almost perfect. I felt like stretching my legs so we landed on a small beach and walked for a ways looking for shells and other things to bring home to our grandson, Jackson, who asked us to bring home some "found objects from nature" for him to take to school for show and tell.  I think we will have Jackson well equipped if we can fit it all in our car.

 The beach where we streched and looked for shells

Lots of oyster shells on the beaches along the waterway 

The rest of the way went quickly with a strong current helping as well as a wind that seemed to help most of the time. The bridge in St. Augustine became visible and rose up from the horizon slowly as we approached. A stunt plane was performing above us as we made our approach.  It would climb up vertically to a stall, then fall back, flip over and dive vertically until pulling out of the dive with a loud roar. Both of us imagined the stomach feeling we would have in that plane.  When I had pulled the boat out I remembered that we had intended to row this piece yesterday.  I knew I would never have made it without rowing in the dark with no lights and would have been beyond exhausted.  We had made the right decision yesterday.