Florida

Tags: diving, Florida, Ginnie Springs, sailing, St. Augustine, USA

Date: May 30, 2017

After Spanish Wells, we spent a little while in Abaco in the Bahamas before going to Florida but we didn't take any pictures there. Here is a map of our route from Puerto Rico, through Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas, and finally to Florida:

An interesting aspect of the sailing between Bahamas and Florida is the Gulf Stream. It runs at about 3 knots, which is a great addition to the 6-7 knots that we usually sail. A challenge is that the Gulf Stream moves around over time. Fortunately, the American meteorological organisation, NOAA, makes predictions of the positions and strength of the current:

As you can see, the main part of the stream is quite narrow. If you look at our route above, you can see a kink off the coast of Florida. We did that to maximize our time in the stream.

We sailed directly from Abaco to St. Augustine in Florida. Here are a few of pictures from there:

This is the Bridge of Lions which opened for us:

This is the fort:

We rented a car and drove to Gainesville where we spent most of our time in Florida. This gave us a chance to visit many of our old friends from when we lived there (and to meet some new friends). We don't have many pictures from Florida, but Bjarne got an underwater housing for a camera, so took a few pictures at Ginnie Springs near High Springs.

Felicie is in the water too:

Sunshine in the river:

The entrance to Ginnie Spring:

Looking out of the cave:

There is a grate that blocks access to the small tunnels in the back of the cave:

On the left side of the grate, you can see a flow measuring device that is used to keep track of how much water comes out of the spring.