22 Mar 14

Beautiful clear warm(ish) morning. We fired up the engine and got away from the dock at 10:00, to catch the 11:00 opening of the Surf City Swing Bridge. After that, we had and uneventful motor up the ICW to Mile Hammock Bay. We unfurled both the genoa and the main at various times, as the wind was behind us and just to see how they looked, but there was not enough wind for a good sail, so we mainly just motored. Arriving at Mile Hammock Bay at 13:30, we anchored and set the “new” Manson on the first go; we were the only boat in the bay. Over the next 3 hours 4 other boats arrived to share the bay. As predicted, about 21:00, a huge thunderstorm brewed up, with fantastic displays of cloud to cloud lightning all around us, but no close ground strikes, thank goodness. We nevertheless put all our electronics (phones, laptops, hand-held radios) inside the microwave. The wind got up a bit with a few gusts to 28 knots, but did not last long and we were happily in bed snoring by about 22:30.