We loved our time at Cumberland Island, but the wind was forecast to build and the anchorage would be choppy, so we decided to head over to a mooring at Fernandina Beach. Of course, we got the only mooring they had open, which was sketchy – someone had run a huge line through the eye of the mooring where our lines were intended to go, so we had to improvise a tie-off. Neither one of us was a big fan, but we kept an eye on our lines to make sure we weren’t seeing signs of chafe, and it was fine.
Fernandina Beach was much more lively this time than when we visited in the spring – granted, we were only in town long enough to grab breakfast and get a propane fill, and most things weren’t open yet. We walked around town (until it started raining) and stopped at Amelia Island Brewing Company for a beer, then had a great dinner at España.
We decided to take a long morning walk on Sunday down to an estuary we heard about, and just around a bend in the marsh, there were a bunch of roseate spoonbills! I’m a bit of a bird nerd, and on the way south last year I had really hoped to see one. The area around Vero Beach is generally the northern end of their range, and I didn’t get lucky enough to see them. Of course I only had our phones, so I didn’t get great shots but I figured we’d come back the next day and hopefully get better pictures.
We wandered a bit more and decided with the chilly, rainy weather that we’d go back to Amelia Island Brewing Company and watch some football. The had live music and it turned out that the Pats/Jets game was on, and we enjoyed getting to watch a game in real time (we’ve been streaming the games to our little TV from Chris’s phone, which we can only do after the game is over). We also stopped for an ice cream at Fantastic Fudge. I decided not to get fudge, which I regret because it looked (and smelled) amazing.
Our plan was to stay through Monday and leave Tuesday morning, but when we did our Monday morning weather check, the forecasts looked better for an immediate departure. So we switched from “lazy Monday morning mode” to “passage prep mode” to take advantage of the better weather window. While I was sad to pass up our plans for a nice marshland hike, I didn’t want to miss the weather window and find ourselves stuck for our entire vacation week. Our time was short, but we’re now looking forward to coming back again and exploring a little more.
