Day 78 – Nov 22, 2017, New Smyrna Beach, FL

We booked to stay at the New Smyrna Beach Marina over US Thanksgiving several days ago to make sure we got a spot. The forecast was for rainy windy weather on Thanksgiving Day so we are staying for two nights.

It rained last night as forecast but was sunny by morning and stayed that way all day, Bob wore shorts. Lots of crab pots on and off, the odd one slightly in the channel so you had to pay attention. Here’s a picture of a small crab boat checking on its traps.

Checking crab traps

We came through three bascule bridges today, two opening on demand and one every thirty minutes but even for the 30 minute one our timing was good so we didn’t have to wait for long. Kind of funny, only one side opened on one of the bridges, it looked injured, but it was a very pretty shade of blue.

One armed bridge

This was also a red letter day for Bob, he got to use the boat horn for the first time since buying this boat. We were heading towards the fairly narrow opening of a dismantled bridge. There were three paddle boarders meandering towards the same opening totally oblivious of our presence or ignoring us. Bob blew the horn and they finally turned around and then moved over – we smiled and said thank you as we passed them.

We saw the beautiful Ponce de Leon Inlet lighthouse and even from a distance it was impressive. We got to the marina around 2:30 and are next to a beautiful 47 foot sailboat (Tartan 4700) from Ottawa. We got invited on board for drinks, another interesting couple we hope to run into again in the Bahamas.

Ponce de Leon lighthouse from the ICW

Historic Canal Street is just around the corner from the marina so we went for a walk and were happy to find a nice looking restaurant open tomorrow. We didn’t think anything would be open on Thanksgiving. We have reservations for 7:30, that’s the earliest we could get, I hope we stay awake.

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