October 31, 2019
St. Augustine
30.14.35 N
81.39.31 W

Morning came early but not as early as a “sparrow’s fart” due in part to the fact that the Main Street Bridge (one of the 6 Jacksonville bridges we have to transit under) doesn’t open between 7:30 and 8:30am during work days.  Being a rather bright individual, Dale took that to mean, sleeping in to 7 am before waking the wifely beast.  (I ease into a morning--not bound out of bed ready to attack the day). 

As he singled up lines, disconnected the electrical cable and secured the remaining fenders, I grabbed the deck brush and started the routine of using the heavy dew to give a quick sweep across the deck.  (Look at me with all my nautical terms).  This uses free water to give the boat a little bath; or at least smears the dust around so it looks a little cleaner. 

Saying Goodbye to NAS Jax

 We got underway from NAS Jax at 8:39am and is our habit, I brought the Palace out of her slip and handed off to Dale once he had put the lines away.  Its amazing what you forget in a year.  We have plotted routes in our chartplotter for our usual course up the River.  Once you make it to the first waypoint, generally, its only a matter of engaging the route to make the boat do the work; you just keep a sharp lookout and monitor the progress.  Dale ended up hand steering most of the way past the base before I managed to get the route to engage properly.  Its just a series of 3 keys strokes but they are keys strokes that must be pushed in the right order to make it work!

 We passed through the Jacksonville metro area by 10am, being fortunate to catch an outgoing tide, and made good progress all the way to the turn east toward Mayport.  As we approached the Dames Point Bridge, Dale handed off to me for my shift.  As fate would have it, the St. Johns River is being deepened to allow the larger cruise ship traffic to enter into the expanding commercial area.  The first working crane I came to was afloat on a barge, with its two accompanying tugs square in the middle of the channel; its attending barge and tug to carry the refuse away was anchored out of the channel but still close enough to keep and eye on.  No auto pilot here!  I passed to the north of it as it appeared to have more room (and I had seen two other boats go to that side).  The second crane with its two tugs was more to the north side but its attending refuse barge and tug were on the move, so I zig-zagged to the south side of the channel.   I could see 2 more cranes lay beyond that one.  Dale came up, took one look and decided he had better take over again.  I pointed out that I had already gone around one but since he volunteered, go for it!  The radio was crackling out alerts to various sport fishers to slow down as they had divers in the water around the barges.  At least I hadn’t received one of those warnings. 

 We turned off the River and onto the ICW (Intercoastal Waterway) continuing south through where the rich folk live; yes Rick, that means you (the house is beautiful by the way).  It was high tide, a fairly narrow channel and beautiful landscaping the whole way.  I didn’t mind being at the helm as much as I usually do during this leg; it was daylight, it was deep and it was a weekday, so the fishermen were working and not darting about in their boats.  Looks like a lot of the owners took their insurance money from Irma to enlarge their estates or sold to someone else that enlarged their estates.  Gorgeous homes. 

St. Augustine Lighthouse

It was Dale’s turn at the helm again as we approached the Velano Bridge.  He started to worry that we wouldn’t make our destination of St. Augustine Marine by sundown.  I pointed out a shower we could see in the distance which really added to the pucker power.  As it turned out, we only waited at the Bridge of Lions for 10 minutes for the 6pm opening, was tied up and connected to power with the AC cooling by 7.  A long day regardless, with another scheduled for tomorrow.  We have a haul out at 7:30am for our out of water survey.  I would guess that it shouldn’t take more than an hour or two but we will see. 



Until then, Happy Halloween!

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