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