Tuesday Feb 19
Today we set off for another long day winding south towards Jacksonville. Nothing remarkable, but if you are also following the tracker you can ask Bob about the the little 'detour' on the Cumberland River. One good lesson learned: make sure you are carefully following the red & green markers especially when they are a bit confusing around a US Navy Trident Submarine Base (No, we were not detained by the authorities ;-).

Birds waiting for food we may have stirred up for them

Finally a north bound boat

Wild horses on an island wildlife preserve

Navy ships at Trident Sub base

Fort Clinch,St. Marys River

     

At the St. Marys River we finally entered the state of Florida. Here the ICW transforms into a series of creeks and rivers connected by narrow land cuts, and consisted of alot of "white knuckle" cruising in narrow channels. 

Paper plant at Fernandia Beach, FL

Fernandina, Beach, FL

Shrimp Boats

Commercial traffic on ICW

More dream houses on ICW

Or this one

Here maybe?

Docked for the night

We did not make it all the way to Jacksonville, FL but got darn close. We decided to overnight at a marina (we picked at random) on the St. Johns River for the night and to head to Jacksonville tomorrow. Today we navigated another 50+ miles. Not a bad days work for Captain Bob.

Wednesday Feb 20

The Ft. George Island Marina might have been a mistake. We were right on the St. Johns River which is a major commercial route and big ships (with wakes to match) traveled by. Directly across the river,  Mayport Navel Air Station had helicopters doing low fly byes and touch and goes all night at the base right . If that was not enough there were two channel dredging operations in the river right across from us that worked all night. Recall that sound travels much farther and faster underwater than in the air.  We had all sorts of strange noises coming through the hull all night long.  Needless to say we were glad to be on the move today even if it was only a short 10 miles down the ICW.

The marina did have a great boat storage facility. I've seen nothing like it.

Storage shed

Boats stacked 4 high

Out of storage and lowered into the river

Right to the water. What a fork lift!

By far the nicest places so far!

Home for the next two nights

Our home away from home

Another amazing sunset

We are are laying over in Jacksonville for a couple of days to pick up some boat parts, a deck cradle for the 8 person auto inflating life raft and provisions for the next leg of our trip. We got several of our 'little' projects completed today with the extra time not cruising, including activating and testing our new XM Satellite weather tracking system ... very nice, and good tunes as well!

We will be leaving here Friday morning provided we get the install work done and all goes as planned.  NOTE: not everything goes as planned on a boating trip; flexibility is the operative concept, especially when it comes to Mother Nature's weather and tides.