Day 37 - May 6

We awoke to a wonderful sunrise and moonset.  We are on our way to John Pennekamp state park and will moor overnight, and then try and snorkle a reef tomorrow.  We go out through Channel 5 bridge, and the park is about 30 miles up the coast.  We put up the sails and have a nice following swell.  The ocean has finally settled down.  We have the fishing pole out again, and we finally caught something of substance, another boat.  As we were putting up the sails, a motor boat cuts behind us as we are turning the boat to start sailing.  Somehow they snagged the line with their boat and ran out all of the line on the reel.  They finally realized that they caught our line and stopped and freed the line.    

We reach the park entrance and the mooring field is a mile in.  It is a winding mangrove channel, and boats are zooming around us as we are doing barely 4 knots as there is a strong outgoing tide.  I cannot believe that most of the channel is not a no wake zone or a slow speed.  There is a corner by the marina which is called "Crash Corner" and is a blind corner; most of the commercial boats issue a securite warning.  Here at least is a slow / no wake zone.  We find a mooring ball and the average depth is 5 feet in the mooring field which limits the boats.  We dingy over and pay for the night.  The dock master was very helpful, and if we needed anything, give him a call.  We then walked to the visitor's center and wandered through the exhibits.  We split an ice cream cone, and then go back to the boat to get our clothes and then take showers in some of the nicest showers we've had on the trip. 

We go back to the boat for dinner, and put all the screens in the boat to keep out the bugs as we are surrounded by mangroves.  I put up the windscreen again and we have a nice breeze in our berth.