Surprise!! We're HOME!!

Having had enough of the Intracoastal, on Wednesday, September 8th, we headed to sea with plans to stop in Beaufort, SC to visit friends. WOW! What a beautiful day! With flat seas and a slight following swell, we simply could not stop at Beaufort! We called our friends and told them with regret, that we were headed to St. Simons Island. Off St. Simons Island, the seas were even more calm so we kept going with our sights set on Jacksonville. At 6:30 PM we entered the jetties at Mayport. To illustrate just how calm it was (and kids, we do NOT recommend trying this), we fired up the gas grill and smoked 2 slabs of ribs while cruising along. We rewarded ourselves with a wonderful meal of ribs after clearing the St. Johns River jetties at Mayport. As the sun set over the Dames Point Bridge, we knew we would be in our home berth tonight. At 8:05. we arrived at Huckins Yacht Center, sat down, took a deep breath and realized what we had accomplished on our final day: 13 hours on the water and 269 nautical miles travelled!! Needless to say, it was the longest travel day and the most miles travelled in one day during our trip but we were home. We have travelled a total of 4503.5 nautical miles or 5088.95 statute miles since April 15th. In the near future, we will complete our blog with thoughts, observations and statistics that might be helpful to others planning their journey on the Down East Loop.