March 25 FINIS!! For now anyway.

March 25

It looks like we’ve completed our last cruising day for the time being until this COVID-19 virus passes.  We’ve been seeing  marinas stop taking reservations for transient boaters and in some cases county leaders here in Florida are making decisions to either close marinas, force transient to move on or not allow them to take anyone new in.  We could probably continue our side trip down the St. John’s River since we would primarily be anchoring out but then we might not be able to find a place to isolate once when we got back on the coast.  The prudent thing for us to do is just park the boat.   We have a 1-2 month reservation at The Marina at Ortega Landing.  It comes highly recommended from Loopers who either wintered here or stayed longer term.  Very nice club atmosphere with concrete floating docks, a pool and hot tub, grills, clubhouse, captains lounge, monthly activities, walking distance to shops, etc.  Of course, most of the social activities are cancelled, all the bars and breweries are closed, and restaurants are carry-out only. But the pool is still open, and their bathrooms are modern and spotless.   Glad we made reservations when we did and locked in a slip.  

Clubhouse, pool, bathroom just steps away from our slip

We get a nice view down the Ortega River from our sundeck

 The trip here from the free dock in Sister’s Creek was uneventful.  Odd weather – overcast to start, then hazy-foggy, then cleared and sunny.  We caught the incoming tide which gave us a nice speed boost.  The trip down the St. John’s River took us past the commercial shipyards, past downtown and then into the Ortega River.   We stopped at the Arlington Marina for some fuel as they have the best price around.  Took on 100 gallons just to   be sure we had enough in case we needed to make a quick run.  With the current still flowing I was hoping their fuel dock was on an outside tie along dock.  It was not to be. Those pumps were out of commission and we needed to go to an inside dock running perpendicular to the current.  We got in and tied up OK. Despite being nervous at departure due to tight quarters maneuvering, we backed up, spun it around, and got back into the river proper without issue or making a spectacle of ourselves.   We did have one big freighter headed outbound meet us loaded with containers.  Naturally we had to meet in one of the turns on the river with dredges working in the main channel. We headed as close to shore as possible and stayed out the way. 

Making way for the Zim Rotterdam

Another interesting thing was seeing 3 cruise ships tied up along the way. Two Norwegian cruise lines and one from Carnival.  Jacksonville occasionally has cruise ship departures but they’re not routine, so these were simply being stored due to the virus. 

Norwegian Sky, Norwegian Pearl and Carnival Ecstacy were all in waiting mode 

We also got to see Shad Khan’s newest superyacht “Kismet”. He’s the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars.  The yacht was docked with five crew members harnessed and tethered to the superstructure busily washing it off.  She’s 312’ long, bought for $200 million in 2018, operating costs of  $15-$20 million annually, crew of 28, charters out for $1.2 million PER WEEK.  

Shad Kahn's superyacht.  Scale the size of it by locating the 2 guys on superstructure cleaning. 

Downtown Jacksonville had a few new buildings since the last time we traveled the waterfront.Noticeably absent was “The Landing” – their waterfront centerpiece building of shops, bars, restaurants, etc.  Just never financially viable.  Tore it down with undetermined plans as yet for the property.

Heading towards downtown Jax.

Downtown waterfront - minus "The Lamding"

Just a final thought.   We’re back in familiar territory.   We brought our old boats down to here from the upper Chesapeake Bay years ago. All of the ICW from here back to our Loop starting point in Charleston are waters we’ve previously traveled.  I guess technically we could say we’ve completed the Loop. We certainly have covered all the required waterways at various times.  However, it just doesn’t seem fitting to say we’ve “Done the Loop” if we haven’t done it all aboard “As You Wish”.  She’s been a great boat and a trouble-free partner on this adventure.  Our insurance carrier stipulates we must be above 31 degrees north (the FL/GA border) by the start of hurricane season on June 1 so plans are still to head for Charleston at some point.  For now we’ll head back to the “dirt house” and take care of some much neglected yardwork and chores.  But check back periodically and see what we’re up to.  At some point we’ll be back aboard, fire up the engine and once again cast off the lines.

Journey for March 24

All the stops on our Loop

March 23 St. Augustine to Jacksonville

March 23

Despite COVID-19 we still had an enjoyable time in St. Augustine.  Russ and Jax on “InQuest” arrived early on Sat. while the current was still ripping which gave us all a good workout wrestling it to the dock and getting it secured.  Shortly afterward we spotted Jamie and Trish on “About Time” approaching.  Bow into the current and extra hands to secure lines made it easier as they tied up for the final time on their Great Loop adventure having now crossed their wake at their starting point.  We celebrated by replacing  the worn out white burgee with their new gold one as we toasted  with champagne and then finished things off with a round of  well-known looper beverages called mini-beers (a half shot of Liquer 43 with some heavy cream floating on the top).  After that everyone was pretty well worthless for the rest of the day.

Jamie and Trish from "About Time" swap out their worn out white flag for the gold

Mini-beers!!!

On Sunday Martha and I took a walk across St. Augustine’s iconic Bridge of Lions to a mostly deserted downtown. The amount of history here always fascinates.  Ruled by both the Spanish and British at various times with history going back to the 1500’s.  The formidable Castillo de San Marco still guards the entrance to St. Augustine inlet and Henry Flagler’s ultimate tourist hotel now serves as the centerpiece to Flagler College.  So much to see in just a few blocks walking distance!

Empty streets in the historic district 

Henry Flagler's opulent hotel - now Flagler College

Some tourist guy at the Castillo de San Marco 

Some tourist lady at the Bridge of Lions

Time to leave for Jacksonville today.  We considered making the long run to Ortega River in one day but decided instead to break it into 2 more reasonable days.  So today we headed north to Jacksonville’s free city dock on Sisters Creek.   This is pretty much at the intersection where the ICW crosses the St. Johns river and just a little bit inland from the inlet.  It’s a bit isolated.  No power although they do have a pumpout and water.  Also had a friendly manatee swim by the dock a few times.  Seemed more curious than normal poking his whole head up and looking rather than just his nostrils coming up for air. 

"Nosey" manatee checking us out 

Great fishing in waters around Sister's Creek for reds, flounders and sea trout

There were already several boaters tied up to the dock but thankfully they moved one boat further down the dock and made room for us.  Two of them are loopers who are still trying to decide what to do or where to go. That really is becoming the million-dollar question for traveling cruisers.  Glad we have our plans finalized for the time being with reservations starting tomorrow at The Marina at Ortega Landing.  At least the boat has a home for a while.   

Tied to the Jacksonville city free dock

Journey for March 23

March 20 Marineland to St. Augustine

March 20

On our second day here we originally planned to visit Marineland, and even though it was actually open, we decided that due to the virus a better option may be to go exploring on the kayaks. It’s been awhile since we’ve launched both of them.  Glad we took the kayaks. We went exploring in the marshes during low tide and even with their limited draft we still repeatedly scraped the bottom on oysters. That would have been a serious “OUCH” and possible puncture in the dingy.

Oyster bed in the marshes

This morning we decided to get up early and walk over to the beach to see the sunrise over the ocean.   Still pretty dark when we got there and only people out earlier than us were the surf fishermen. I’ve got to say that despite all those sayings about the beauty of a sunrise, the glorious start of another new day, yada, yada, yada, I still much prefer a good sunset with a drink in my hand to complete the day.  

Who's idea was this to get up so early??

Martha's "artsy" picture - sunset through a wooden cutout on the boardwalk

Fishermen at sunrise

After returning to the boat and having some breakfast and taking showers it was time to start for St. Augustine. We figured leaving at 10 would put us there 12ish at low tide.  In talking to the marina once we were underway slack current was actually at 1:45 so part way up we anchored for an hour for a leisurely lunch.  We’re starting to get into places where larger tidal changes and the resulting stronger currents can really impact boat control during docking so the timing of slack current is becoming very important. It’s a weird concept but slack water usually doesn’t occur at the same time as full high or low tide.  We arrived after an uneventful trip and got docked without much issue. 

We’re at Marker 8 Hotel and Marina across the river from St. Augustine proper on Anastasia Island. Boutique hotel and small marina. 

Nice day on the water

Another derelict boat . Such a  shame. I'm sure it was stunning at one time

In our slip at Marker 8

We thought it would be better not being amongst the big crowd over at the city docks plus this is the marina our friends Jamie and Trish on “About Time” use as their home port.  We’ll celebrate tomorrow when they arrive to “cross their wake”, complete their Great Loop journey and raise their new gold burgee.  Things are pretty desolate here because of the COVID-19 virus.  More restrictions by the hour.  Currently all bars are closed so it looks like our craft brewery tours and flights are over for the time being. We lucked out and got our last sit down meal in a restaurant only because we were out early.  At 5PM today restaurants either had to close or convert to pick-up orders only. We got in to O’Steens which is a small local seafood restaurant renowned for their fried shrimp.  We got the fried shrimp and also some grilled mahi-mahi.  Both outstanding but the fish in particular was probably the best we’ve had so far in Florida.

Historic St. Augustine lighthouse

When we lived in Jacksonville I brought my boat over here one summer to a marina called “The Conch House” on the back side of Anastasia Island so I could more easily focus on some offshore fishing. One of the things that always mesmerized me was watching the first mates on the charter boats filleting the days catch. It’s amazing what a sharp knife and a little know how can do to speed things up.  We happened to walk over there, and the “Jodie Lynn” crew was hard at it just like we remembered.  Catch of the day from 50 miles offshore included tuna, wahoo, king mackerel and mahi-mahi. 

Catch of the day

Making quick work on a nice wahoo

 Back at the marina we got a nice sunset silhouetting the St. Augustine skyline and the famous buildings built by Henry Flagler.  And to finish off the day we got a picture from my brother in New Zealand where my nephew Daniel and his new bride Athene just got married.   Big congratulations to them!!  

Daniel and Athene - Congratulations!!

Sunset behind the city of St. Augustine

Journey for March 20

March 18 Palm Coast to Marineland

March 18

Palm Coast is a planned community that’s been in development for over 40 years.  The marina was nice enough and the staff very helpful and we enjoyed looking at houses during a dingy ride up and down the canals (until I ran us out of gas and had to flag down another boater to tow us back to our boat).  All that said, it’s still a weird feeling community to me.  It just seems a bit disjointed and unfinished and hasn’t lived up the original vision – likely the result of going through several housing recessions and  multiple bankrupt  developers.  Sort of a Hilton Head gone bad. 

"As You Wish" tied up in the marina - nice new resort going in across the river 

Contrail  from SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket

Florida has a program  for removal of abandoned vessels - wish they would implement it

We intentionally left Palm Coast  late today as we were only moving about 6 miles up the river to Marineland Marina with a planned noon arrival.  It’s a pleasant  marina if a bit isolated with newer  floating docks  and  a couple of interesting boats.

Pristine  classic Freeform Flyer at Marineland Marina

 Marineland is directly across A1A from the marina.  We had hoped to visit this historic facility which originally opened as the first oceanarium in 1938.  It became a studio for underwater filming in the 40’s and 50’s and eventually became a research and training facility for dolphins.  It’s currently owned by the Georgia Aquarium!  While the facility is still open to visitors, with the COVID-19 virus in full effect we opted to forego a visit and instead took a stroll down the beach. This area got hit pretty bad by Hurricane Irma back in 2017.  Beach erosion is still very noticeable. They lost oceanfront houses and A1A had to be redirected onto a new road.  Old A1A is now just a 4x4 drivable sand strip going to the handful of remaining homes.  We’ll self-isolate a bit more tomorrow and take the kayaks out for a paddle. Looks like some pretty nice side waters to explore.

Old A1A  and beach erosion

A flock of seagulls  accompanied us on the beach

We’re still planning to stop in St. Augustine for a few days to help celebrate “About Time” completing their loop but we’re staying at a small marina across from town.   A number of marinas have begun cancelling reservations or stopped taking new arrivals which made us nervous. So we called around and for right now have locked in a slip for an extended stay in Jacksonville at The Marina at Ortega Landing. We may wind up leaving the boat and heading for home to hunker down until this Pandemic runs it’s course.   

Sunset over the nature preserve to our west

Journey for March 18

March 16 New Smyrna Beach to Rockhouse Creek Anchorage to Palm Coast

March 16

Time for another Looperversary already!!  Now at it for 11 months. It’s strange but ever since cutting across Florida and turning north once we hit Stuart it’s become more and more clear that the voyage is heading towards it’s conclusion. The tropical south Florida landscape has slowly been changing over to more pine trees, hardwoods and moss-covered live oaks.  Still the deep south, just not the tropical south. We’ve lost those gorgeous gulf coast sunsets and being inshore from the Atlantic we’re not getting much in the way of picturesque sunrises.

Canal Street  looking toward river

New Smyrna Beach  downtown

New Smyrna was a nice town.  Interesting history.  It was established for the growing and exporting of indigo using primarily Minorcan, Greek and Mediterranean area indentured servants. Roughly 1500 were brought over in 1768.  Purely an economic  vs. religious or persecuted group settlement with financial backers in England. Unique for the time, slaves were very sparingly utilized in the settlement.  Lasted about 9 years overall  then over use of the soil and years of drought, famine, malaria pretty much killed it.  The remaining indentured servants were finally granted leave and headed to St. Augustine.  Then the usual Florida town story – fort built to protect the inlet (originally called Mosquito Inlet subsequently changed to Ponce DeLeon Inlet) citrus, railroad, seafood, tourists, etc.  Nice downtown area – mostly just one street with shops, restaurants and a brewery (too heavy on the IPA’s for me).  Some ruins of the old fort are still viewable in the city park.

Old Fort ruins at the city park.Big blue and white building in background is Masonic Temple 

A nearby Porsche Club  out on a road tour.

Gratuitous Porsche 914 picture for one of my favorite blog readers 

Porsche 993 picture - just because it's the most beautiful Porsche  EVER!!

After our stay there we decided to anchor out Sunday night with “InQuest” and “About Time” just a few miles up the Halifax River in Rockhouse Creek.  Just past our anchorage the creek opens up to a long sandy stretch at the inlet which was “party central” on this nice warm sunny Sunday.  Wall to wall boats along that shoreline.  

Wall to wall  boaters out at "party island"

We got a chance to drop the dingy and go exploring up some mangrove marshes and even dropped a kayak and did a little paddling.  As the day wore down those boaters started leaving and we had things mostly to ourselves.  

A little solitude and nature back in the mangroves

Russ and Jax on “InQuest” had invited us all over to celebrate the renaming of their boat now that they had officially mounted nameboards on the sides.  A toast to Neptune and a tip of the bottle overboard to him still left plenty of beverages for us. 

Russ and Jax christen "InQuest" as "As You Wish" and "About Time" look on

  As the sun was getting low and we were all winding down we watched as a sailboat came into the anchorage and abruptly cut between “InQuest” and our boat.  We all thought “Not good – shoal where he’s going” and about then he came to an abrupt stop.  We watched him maneuver for a while trying to get free to no avail.   Russ and Jamie fired up their dinghies and we headed over to see if we could pull him into deeper water.  No luck with that at all. He was stuck until the tide came back up which would be hours away and in the dark.  He was simply too close to “As You Wish” to take a chance on which way we would swing as the current changed direction as well as where he would eventually swing once he finally lifted.  So, with the last bits of sunlight disappearing Martha and I raised anchor and moved further out into the channel giving him clearance for whatever transpired.  It all worked out.

Dingy power simply insufficient to move that sailboat to deeper water

Sunsets at anchor overcome any of the days issues

Today we headed to Palm Coast and bypassed Daytona.   Just had no real desire to go there.  “InQuest” and “About Time” are spending the night there so we’ll get a report from them.  We raised anchor at 9.  Sailboat had left about 8:30 so plenty of maneuvering room.   Uneventful trip.  Plenty of derelict sailboats around the Daytona area sitting in shallow water or beached. Tried to figure out when the last bad storm passed through here because it seems like these should have all been removed by now. 

Daytona putting in another new bridge to the beach. 

Nice to see we can still build a bridge with pleasant aesthetics the days

Even their generic older bridge at least had these artistic renderings of dolphins and manatees

Some nice stretches of natural area

Then trash like this clogging the waterway - such a shame. 

The only bridge we had to have lift for us today

 A few dolphins surfaced ahead of us on occasion.  Some areas of natural wilderness and swamps.  And then a long stretch of narrow channel lined with houses.  Palm Coast was being developed when we lived in Florida 20 years ago, so we were curious to see how it was doing.  It’s grown a bunch.  Unfortunately for us the commercial area is about 2 miles away and the local “European Square” with a few shops and restaurants is a ghost town on Mondays with everything closed.  We’ll see if it’s any better tomorrow.  The one thing I don’t understand here from a local boater’s perspective is there simply isn’t much water.  There’s the river which is very narrow or else shallow in areas where it opens up. The Ponce De Leon inlet is 30 miles to the south and  St. Augustine Inlet is 20 miles to the north.   It just seems like there’s no place to go, yet every waterfront lot has a house, a dock and boat.   Oh, and remember that sailboat  from the anchorage – he’s docked directly behind us here in Palm Coast.

Our "friends" on "Hair of the Dog"

Short Journey for March 15

Journey for March 16