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