How tall is the boat ?

   Now that we are entering truly populated Florida, we get to enjoy boat traffic, No Wake Zones, Coast Guard and Sheriff boats, and BRIDGES. The first bridge we encountered had a clearance of 18 feet. There was a sailboat waiting to pass through, so we waited behind the sailboat for the bridge to open. The bridge was scheduled to open every 1/2 hour, we arrived at 11:55, perfect. We passed through without incident.

  The next bridge had a posted clearance of 24 feet. I was not sure of our overall height (with antennae's and the radar mast) so we stopped and tried to measure the distance from the tallest part of the boat to the water (that was fun). We estimated the distance to be 20 feet, we were sure it was not more than 21 feet. Jeff went onto the bow of the boat as I SLOWLY approached the bridge. We got under the bridge, but not by much (pictures show how close we were). 

We approached the bridge slowly.

Glad we were centered on the opening.

  We did see a death occur today, a new experience on the water for me. Shortly after leaving dock this morning, we heard two shots. A moment later a small boat motored from the far shore and stopped directly in our path, we watched two hunters retrieve a duck they had just shot.

  We cruised the rest of the day without incident, fair weather and light winds. We are docked at Palm Coast Marina where we were able to fuel up and top off the water tanks.

  Tonight's dinner was kielbasa and sauerkraut.