May 27, 28, & 29 – Jacksonville & St. John’s River, FL
We departed beautiful
St. Augustine early on Memorial Day, May 27, with the intent of being off the
water at a marina in Jacksonville before the holiday traffic became heavy later
in the day. Our travel up the river from
St Augustine was smooth and uneventful and we were able to get into our marina
before noon. Saw some lovely homes along
the way. We did encounter some traffic
late in the morning but local law enforcement was quite busy keeping everyone
under control. We heard later that 3
young folks died and one was seriously injured in a boating accident very near
our anchorage in St Augustine the evening before (we wondered what all the
Coast Guard helicopters were doing that evening…).
We docked at
the Palm Cover Marina. After lunch we
washed the boat, almost finishing before we were visited by our friends Julie
and Jim Ford. (The Fords own two
Woodcraft stores, one in New Hampshire and one in Jacksonville; we had traveled
with them previously for a quick week in Italy a few years ago.) It was great to see Julie and Jim again and
we enjoyed docktails on the fly bridge before joining them for a wonderful
dinner at one of their local favorite haunts.
We enjoyed catching up on children, grandchildren and of course, the news
of the Woodcraft stores.
The Fords
graciously took us food shopping after dinner as well so we could restock up on
some water, milk and other essentials.
While we expected to depart on Tuesday we found that our water heater
had ‘bit the dust’ and so Ron decided to replace the element on Tuesday pushing
off departure until Wednesday. Jim
offered to be the ‘taxi’ around to West Marine and ACE (largest ACE we’d ever
been in) in search of the correct heater element. Water heater fixed by 6 pm, dinner with the
Fords again (at Irish Pub – “Culhane’s” – see an episode of Diners, Drive-in’s
and Dive’s – Jim was one of the customers filmed BTW; and Ron had the really
yummy ‘dingle fish pie’: scallops, shrimp,
salmon, peas, garlic, parmesan in a white cream sauce if we recall correctly) and
the new plan: we’d shove off on Wednesday.
As plans
sometimes happen, our return from dinner lead to a “stinky” discovery that our
toilet system for the guest room was going to need some work, likely a new
vac-uflush pump. Cleaned up a little
mess and Jim kindly agreed to again be the chauffer on Wednesday as we searched
for parts to repair the sanitation system.
(For your enjoyment, we are not
posting pictures.) We did find most of
the parts, Ron made the repair (Michele assisted ‘the surgeon’) and – darn –
the entire housing unit would need replacement!
As Jim stated, at least the whole attempt provided ‘boat bonding’ moments/time. So, after canceling a dinner engagement with
the Fords we ‘cleaned up’ and prepared to depart on Thursday using one toilet
for a few days. This will allow time for
a new pump and motor to be shipped into Jacksonville. We then went ahead with plans to explore the
St John’s River.
Cruised the waterway
on Thursday for about 50 miles with a light chop, with some waves spraying water
on the windows. Made anchorage late Thursday on the River in
an anchorage called ‘Deep Creek’; had pot roast, salad, and potato salad for
dinner and hit the hay early. 
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