We took the St John's River Ferry (across, weirdly, the St John's River) and scanned the skies for the re-scheduled Atlas V launch, but either we were looking in the wrong direction (unlikely, as Fiona was navigating) or the cloud was too low and we saw nothing.
Never mind, we'll come back for Orion....
We did however, see a lot of pelicans on the ferry, so here's a picture.
So we headed along the A1A coastal road, catching glimpses of the sea and eventually, we ran out of road. We stopped at the brilliantly named Sandy Bottom Cafe at Fernandina Beach to refuel and then decided we'd take a walk along the beach.
We stopped at beach entrance 27 and chatted casually to a man hanging off his balcony. He seemed very interested that we were from the UK and said he'd sailed across the Atlantic for the Queen's Silver Jubilee. We were suitably impressed and went for our walk.
However, our chap on the balcony wasn't finished with us. As we approached the car, he introduced his wife (presumably to demonstrate he wasn't an axe-murderer) and asked us if we'd like a cup of tea.
To Fiona's slight consternation, Karen accepted with alacrity (anything for tea!) and we went up to their condo, where we were told all about Ed's adventures sailing single-handedly across the Atlantic, and shown copies of the book that he and his wife Fran wrote after the trip.
They were both charming, chatty and - unusually for Americans* - made a damn fine cup of tea. Here they are with Fiona:
About 35 minutes later, we were on our way with an invitation to write. Certainly, they'll be on Karen's Christmas card list.
*This is of course, not counting Mr Chris Schmaltz and Mr Dan Grossman, who have tea making down to a fine art.
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