Start time and hours 0715
3484.90 MM 687
End time and hours 1500 3492.16 MM 746
The Umbrella
River was a wonderful anchorage. We
would be leaving Georgia and entering Florida today. The quiet secluded anchorages of South
Carolina and Georgia in their deep creeks and rivers would be few and far
between when we reached Florida.
We came out of
Umbrella Creek and crossed St. Andrew Sound.
This would be the closest thing to going into the Atlantic ocean since
Norfolk VA. Because of shoals in the
sound you need to go way out southeast and then turn 90 degrees to
southwest. You can see the ocean side of
Jekyll Island. The winds were calm and
the crossing was very easy.
After crossing,
we cruised down beside Cumberland Island (we didn’t see any wild horses) and
crossed the Cumberland sound and into Florida at Fernandina Beach. There is a large navigational tower that
appears to be right on the border between Georgia and Florida in the middle of
the sound. Since we were going into
Florida I assumed it was a toll booth.
We had thought
about stopping in Fernandina for a night but the city marina is still
undergoing repairs from hurricane damage.
Government work moves slowly and it had been more than a year since the
damage and they were still taking bids for the repairs. So we moved on to Jacksonville Beach.
We cruised down
the Amelia River, crossed Nassau Sound and went into Sawpit creek. This continued into Sister’s creek and then
across the St. Johns River. Just before
crossing the St. John’s River we had to go under a bridge that had a boat ramp
beside it. This being a Saturday in
Florida there were hundreds of small fishing boats zipping around all day. As we approached the bridge there were at
least 25 boats congregated around the ramp, some moving and some just sitting
blocking the bridge. Elaine did a great
job weaving around the little fishing boats and making it under the
bridge.
After crossing the St. John’s River we headed into Pablo Creek and just as we were finishing going under another bridge we got viciously waked by a big go-fast boat that came under the bridge and passed us about 25 feet away from our starboard. It sent everything on the starboard side of the boat to the port side. It was totally unnecessary and dangerous. If you see a forty foot motor yacht named Gypsy Soul, stay out of its way.
We had one more
bridge experience today. At the Atlantic
bridge there was a construction barge parked under the center span for work on
the bridge. This blocked about half the
horizontal clearance of the bridge. We
were running against a strong current and the barge made it stronger. Recently, a post on Trawler forum described
this as his most terrifying experience as a boater as the currents threw his
bow back and forth while trying to navigate the narrow channel. As you can see in the video, the current is
strong and the boat is moved around quite a bit. It took almost full power to maintain control
and get through. At one point I
increased power because Elaine did not want to take her hands off of the
wheel. I did not tell her about the
Trawler forum post until after we through.
After these
bridge experiences it was only a few short miles down to the Palm Cove marina
in Jacksonville Beach FL.
The Palm Cove
Marina http://www.palmcovemarina.com/ was a nice place to spend a couple of days. We needed to do laundry, pump out, get fuel,
and re-provision. There was a good
grocery store about one half mile away.
There was also a McDonald’s where we had a wonderful breakfast before
leaving.
The marina had a
captain’s lounge with a tv. We went to
watch the football games on Sunday but there was a man there already and he was
watching Ant Man the movie. Fortunately
he left after the movie but by then we had missed the first half of
Patriots/Raiders in Mexico city.
No comments:
Post a Comment