Chilly North

Good thing we went to bed early last night.  The winds started picking up around 4:00 a.m., waking us up, so we were out of bed before 5:00 a.m. with the stern slapping.  By first light we were out of there around 6:15 a.m. even though the full moon was just about as bright anyway.  Once we were underway, cruising the remaining length of Lake George was uneventful other than going around a fisherman waving us to do so as to not interrupt his mate pulling up their trot line.
The remainder of our 32 mile travel day continued to be uneventful with nature displaying several bald eagles for us, including a pair on one of the green navigational day markers, and a large alligator sunning itself on a log just prior to us anchoring.


Here I was taking a picture of the white birds in the trees.  After taking the picture I realized there was a large alligator on the log below them.  The best picture I got of a small alligator today is giving me grief to get on here.

Our five hour trip left us plenty of time to go play.  We routinely got the dinghy down and decided to travel the uncharted waters we missed.  You see, when we traveled south on the St. Johns River in May we turned off behind Murphy Island to anchor, then exited out Murphy Creek at the south end.  Today we entered from the south end to anchor in the same place because we enjoyed it so much last time.  Besides that, Ray wants to hear the fire-breathing dragons again.
Anyway, this afternoon we traveled all the way around Murphy Island in the dinghy so we can now say that we did not leave any uncharted waters on the St. Johns.  Upon that cruise we discovered that there is a primitive campground on the other side of the island.  We discussed moving "The Second Noelle" to that dock for the night, but didn't figure it would be that much different than this side.  We also came across about three alligators, but were only able to capture the picture of one.

Just a bit of the fall color of Florida.

Coming back to the mother ship.