Day two....to Daytona....or so we thought.....

The following story may or may not have occurred.... unless it did.....the events depicted may be fictional....or they may not.....the names may or may not have been changed to protect the innocent....or maybe not.....


A rather uneventful day...  woke to a beautiful sunrise in St Augustine....I usually hate these.....

but, I was awake, so why not enjoy it.  But, it was cold, so had to turn on the diesel powered solar generator to get the boat warm.....  definitely time to head south....

The trick in boating the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) is to stay in the water......

I can't tell you how disappointed I was to find ourselves aground!  But, as I looked around, I noticed we were still in the water.  Perplexing.  Obviously something wrong with our chartplotter.  Being the cautious boater that I am, I believe in redundancy.  So I checked the back up chartplotter.....

and found we were in the water, but had just passed over the ground.....fortunately, Karen was watching dolphins and didn't noticed we had just boated over a quarter mile on dry land..... I guess that is why all the books say to follow the channel markers and not the charts.  Odd, but, in this case anyway, beneficial..... especially since, later in the day, we decided to follow a sailboat into Daytona... there are two low bridges in Daytona....though we had only been through here once before, the charts say we cannot clear them.  Last time we cleared one but not the other....depends on the tides....today we were going in at high tide so I knew we would have to have the bridges opened...a sailboat was ahead of us...let's just follow him and let him open the bridges.  As luck would have it, the sailboat ahead decided to exit the channel....  the problem with that is that you may run aground...which he did.....wow, he stopped fast, said Karen.  Yes, he did, said I... no one was hurt and that's what towing insurance is for, always buy the towing insurance (WESTMARINE.COM) so we had to open our own bridges.

just past the bridge was our stop for the night, Daytona Marina.  We called the harbormaster.  "when you come in, just go past the 164 footer and turn right to dock six."  164 footer?  I was hoping I wasn't going to scratch his anchor!  (Caddyshack.)  Funny thing was, the reason we wanted to stay at Daytona Marina (again) was because there was a Charthouse Restaurant in the marina.  When we called, they said they had no space for us.  Race week.  Daytona 500.  Daytona 500?  What's that?  Oh, you don't know.  Well, come on in.  We'll find a place for you they said.  Didn't say anything about 164 footers though.......

Anyway, huge boats, oddly enough named "Wheels", with tender "Training Wheels", "Pole Position," with tender "Outside Pole," and the M&M's boat, I guess.... who knew race car drivers/teams would have big boats?  Weird.

Anyway, we did have dinner at the Charthouse.  Usually we like early bird specials (for old people) and happy hour prices (for poor people) but, oddly enough, the Charthouse doesn't have happy hour or early birds when rich race car drivers are in town.

so we ordered enough food for 6 meals so we could at least have leftovers.....

On a side note, I used to have a job.  Worked with a great bunch of people.  Well, except that one guy... anyway, even though they were all heros, some of them were kinda strange.  They liked Nascar, for some reason.  Nascar?  Really?  Drive really fast and make Left turns?   Anyway, I sometimes made fun of them and their sport.  As I get older, I realize that was mean of me.  I may have hurt their self esteem.  That was wrong, and I apologize.  I will never do it again.   And, whist we were eating at the Charthouse in Daytona on Daytona 500 weekend we did not see Danica Patrick and a bunch of other apparently race car drivers.  Although Mr. The King was there.  Or maybe not.  I would tell you who else was there, but I'm not really sure.  If they took swim suit pictures like Danica Patrick I might know who they were.  Too bad you weren't there.  If this really happened.  But it probably didn't.  As far as you know.

Anyway, Daytona 500 this weekend.  You can probably see the drivers on tv.....

Tomorrow, back to boating......