2021: Cumberland Island Anchorage GA to Jacksonville FL

 1 November 2021

Depart: Cumberland Island Anchorage, GA 11:30

Arrive: Jacksonville Free Dock 5:30

Distance: 49 nm

Conditions: perfect day for ocean travel

Due to hurricane season, our boating insurance stated that we could not be south of Cumberland Island until noon today. We timed pulling up our anchor and leaving to coincide with passing by the end of the Island at noon. 

As we slowly made our way out of the anchorage, I grabbed some pictures of the area.

"Danger Wreck" in anchorage

Sailboats in the anchorage

Low water 

Fun along the shore of the island

Busy Buoy

Watching the clock, we motored along Cumberland Island at minimum speed. We noticed another boat chugging along beside us. Just before noon, we got a call on the radio. "Sunset Delight, are you insured by Chubb too?" Clark and I both cracked up laughing. We had already decided he must be creeping along like us for the same reason. 

M/V Scoter Duck  - along side us
creeping towards the southern end of Cumberland Island

Clark wanted to go out in the ocean yesterday, but to do so, we would have to have traveled beyond the southern end of Cumberland Island Insurance constraint. Instead we dealt with all the low-tide areas through Georgia. We had no such constraint today, and we made our escape to the Atlantic Ocean. Yay!!! No biting fingernails watching low depths! No slow-speed, no-wake zones! No boaters passing us or for us to pass! Freedom!

We went out into the ocean at St. Mary's Inlet and came back in at St. John's Inlet at Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville is an exciting city for boating. We saw US Coast Guard ships and helicopters, Naval ships, commercial vessels of all types, and even some pleasure boats. 

As we entered the St. John's River, we noticed helicopters circling. Clark thought they might be doing touch-and-go exercises. Seemed to me that they were preparing to dive bomb us as they passed repeatedly over our heads.

USCG Vessel and Helicopter 

Flew right over the top of our boat.

Circling around for another pass

Overhead pass again

 

Traveling along the St. John's River, we saw every imaginable boat it seemed.

USCG ship with machine guns!
One of a pair that came in the inlet shortly 
after we entered.

Tanker

Fishing Trawler

Ferry

Container Ship underway

Stacked high with containers

Naval Vessel being worked on

Another naval vessel in dry dock

Sailboat - we later helped tie up at the
docks where we stayed for the night

Tug Boats

I was interested in the next vessel we saw and looked it up in Google. The "Grande Florida" is a 2020 addition to the Grimaldi Italian line of ships. This one is a vehicle carrier. After offloading vehicles in Jacksonville, the ship is heading to Houston, Texas.

Vehicle Carrier Ship

Vehicles being driven off the ship

Being a week day, we got to see the action as robots unloaded containers from a container ship at dock. The arms came out went down into the ship and came up with a container to put ashore. For all the containers we saw on shore and being offloaded, I only saw one truck coming in to get the next box.

Container Ship "Isla Bella" 

Container being lifted from "Isla Bella"

Second robot arm working simultaneously to 
offload containers

We normally stay at the free dock at Sister's Creek, but Clark decided to try the docks at the Metropolitan Park Marina, which offers free docking unless an event is going on. Luckily, tonight there was no event. The marina provides water and electric.

Being free, no dockhands came out to help with lines. We managed just fine as I got on two temporary lines until Clark could come down from the helm to assist. We used those two lines to walk the boat further back into the slip before tying it off. All told it took about 10 to 15 minutes to adjust lines and fenders to our liking. Once satisfied, we decided to stroll around the area. We have only ever seen these parts from the water as we navigated our way down the St. John's River.

Docks at the Metropolitan Park Marina

Fire boat docked at marina

As we walked the docks, we saw the sailboat that Clark had seen earlier in the day and then later talked to on the radio. He gave Clark some information on grabbing a slip here since it was our first time. Clark knew he would be tying up here, so we went down to grab his lines for him. Afterwards we continued our stroll and met another boater who was single-handling his power boat. He said he got lucky and someone from the marina helped him tie up.

After chatting (for longer than I preferred), we continued our walk around the area. Our first exhibit was The Jacksonville Fire Museum. We only saw the outside given the time of day.

Outside of the Jacksonville Fire Museum

Next we strolled past the home of the Jacksonville Jaguars!

Jacksonville Stadium

Sports and Entertainment Complex

We saw lots and lots of port-o-potties. The person who named the company had a sick sense of humor.

Floaters Portable Sanitation - 
"You Float 'm - We Tote 'm" (Gross!)

Then we found ourselves done with our tour and heading back towards the boat to make dinner.

I am not sure of the significance of this giant Gator in the nearby park. The only sign read "Please do not climb on the gator!"

Florida Gator

Later, as I made dinner, we noticed the sky changing colors.

Sunset at Jacksonville, so red, it looked like
the sky was on fire

2 November 2021

Depart: Jacksonville Metropolitan Park Free dock, 10:40

Arrive: Lamb's Yacht Center, Ortega, FL 11:45

Distance: 7 nm

Conditions: Sunny, 60s

Bad habits crept in and we stayed in bed until after 9:00. I stayed up way too late last night finishing an interesting novel. It did not make any difference on our departure time; however, as we had to wait until later in the morning for a closed RR bridge that was under repair. 11:00 was the earliest time they could guarantee passage, so we hung out at the free dock until then.

We passed by numerous tall city buildings as we continued along the St. John's River.

City buildings - Vystar, Wells Fargo, Hyatt, etc

Pirate Ship Docked beside Hyatt

Neither Clark nor I drink coffee. Even so, usually I enjoy the smell of freshly ground coffee. Passing by the Maxwell House facility, however, it came on a bit too strong for me. After we passed by, I felt like I had inhaled enough caffeine to last the whole day long.

"Good to the Last Drop"!

When we arrived at the railroad bridge, it was open as promised. 

Clark was disappointed he missed a good looking-down-the-tracks photo as we passed by. One has to plan well ahead for those.

Work crew on another section of the RR bridge

The RR bridge was not the only one being worked on apparently. As I looked at the men up in the bucket under the next bridge, I was vey glad that I had never had that job!

Men in bucket, way up high, under bridge

We have reservations for the boat to stay at Lamb's Yacht Center on the Ortega River for the next month. Having stayed here last year, we decided we liked it and wanted to return. The only problem with getting to this marina is passing over the skinny water to reach the Ortega River from the St. John's River. Clark had me keep an eye on the depth finder as we crept across to the river. Luckily, we  found no real problem areas. 

Our original reservation was to start on November 5th, but we arrived early. The marina accommodated us by placing us in a temporary spot for a couple of days until our assigned slip opens up. 

The first order of business after we got our lines secured at the slip was lunch. After that, I grabbed my laundry and walked up to find the washers and dryers. Clark was napping when I left. When I returned a couple of hours later, I found him busy scrubbing saltwater off the boat. Of the two jobs, I prefer the laundry! I decided that we had enough food on board that grocery shopping could wait until the next day.

3 November 2021

No boat travel!

We pulled the bicycles out today. They have not been ridden in quite a while. Usually I do not have a problem, but today I felt a little wobbly and uncomfortable riding my bike on the docks to get up to the street. By the time we got to Publix, a very short bike ride away, I felt comfortable and confident again. 

Unfortunately, while shopping, I forgot we were on bicycles. We had Clark's backpack to carry food back to the boat plus a couple of small bags. I put too much food in the cart. It was the pizza that alerted me to the problem. Before we got to the checkout, I realized it would be difficult to transport a pizza, albeit frozen, on a bicycle. I decided we would figure out something and manage to get it "home". It was not until we started putting food on the conveyor belt that I realized I had overbought on other food as well. 

I shoved all the frozen food into Clark's backpack plus the meat we purchased. It weighed a ton, and I still had more food to stash somewhere. A while back, I made two bike bags, one for each bike, out of

Igloo carrier bags. We had both of those and I stuffed them full. I also had two tote bags in my handbag. We put the pizza in one of those for Clark to carry and the bread in the other for me. 

Thankfully, we had a short ride back to the boat. Hopefully, next time, we go shopping by bike, I remember!

After stowing the groceries and prepping the meat for the freezer, I sat down to work on the blog updates and that took up the rest of the day. 

The buildings here block the sunset, so no pictures today.