Day 26 -October 29 - Amelia Island Yacht Basin to Palm Coast, FL

We fueled up first thing in the morning and shoved off about 0900.
Just out in the ICW, we had to go through a bascule train bridge and under a car bridge.

Just outside Amelia Island Yacht Basin

Air boat

Once in Florida, the ICW becomes a little more interesting and scenic than in Georgia and parts of SC, some of it because it offers a variety of naturalist topography and some for the human creations, houses, dockside toys and boats.

That said, the ICW is more of a straight shot and narrow so there is less variance in the route you can take. 

Approaching St. Augustine

An exception was in St. Augustine's Sound, a bustling area with lots of boating activity.

St. Augustine's city front

Large sailing vessel, Tabasco, that we had seen in Newport
earlier on our voyage crossing the draw bridge in St. Augustine's

One area, however was very tricky, taking you close to shore for an illogical route, as the center of the channel was shallow from shoaling.  As we approached, there were two vessels already aground and one shot out a warning to us over the VHF to get over closer to shore.  Good thing, as despite reading about the warnings in our Waterway Guide guide, we were headed for the area where we might have grounded out. 

Grounded vessels

Hopefully these vessels just needed to await the incoming tide before moving on and sustained no damage to their props, shafts or hulls.

Wave runners

One part of the run of severely storm-damaged waterfront structures had an emergency “No Wake” zone. We were warned of this by a patrolling law enforcement vessel’s officers.

More hurricane damage

We made our way into the marina at Palm Coast for the evening.  A fun condo complex nearby had a fun plaza inside the complex, a "European Village" with lots of activity, eight restaurants, live music and folks dressed up in their Halloween costumes.  We closed the evening with a few games of gin.  We won't say who won the most hands.