Jacksonville

February 21, 2021

We woke to 41° this morning. [How many of you learned how to get a “degree” symbol from the comment on this blog—Thank You]. That is pretty cold for us now. We recently saw temps in the 80’s. We are currently docked in a marina just South of Jacksonville, Ortega River Marina. Way “Up North”. The trend has been the northern part of Florida is cooler and wetter than the mid-section and south.

We are very happy to see the warmer weather heading toward our home. The deep freeze there lasted much to long.

If you have been following our travels on the St. John’s river, you know we need to move North up the north flowing St. John’s river to connect with the ICW and begin our southward travels.

This area of Jacksonville is very nice. Our walkabout showed many pretty homes, condos and lots of marinas. There are rivers, lakes and of course the ocean near Jacksonville. We get it now. Lots of water. It boasts of 850 square miles of stunning beaches. We hate to admit but we have never been to the famous JAX beaches. We may rectify that when we head for home in April.

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We were in walking distance of a Publix grocery store. A very big, very nice store. OK, boring you say but it’s kind of exciting because we haven’t been near a real grocery store for quite some time and Publix has everything. We stocked up on a few items. The other thing we enjoyed was the sounds of a nearby train going by a few times a day. It reminds both of us of growing up in St. Paul. We stayed two nights here. Very relaxing.

We again got on the water by 8:00, heading to St. Augustine. We had a bit of assistance getting out in very tight quarters by our dock mates who had lived in the marina for 4 years but were moving to Titusville. They purchased a condo there and were relocating their large boat as well. We were trying to time the tide about 4 hours away as we had heard the rushing high tide could make passing under the Pablo Creek bridge a a bit dangerous. Yes, we are back…tides, currents and saltwater.

We passed by several upscale marinas attached to condos and yacht clubs, admiring the boats and thinking this was a great spot. We needed a bridge to lift on our way out of the Ortega River and luckily, it was just lifting for a sailboat heading out. A quick call to the bridge master who agreed he would wait for us to pass through as well. Full throttle still doesn’t make Pursuit fly, but it all worked out.

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Back out onto the St. John’s we got a bit of a surprise — wind. We were very protected on the Ortega. Wind means waves. The part of the river going up to Jacksonville was very wide—like a lake. This was probably the most astonishing thing about the trip on this river; it’s really, really wide in a lot of spots. Ok, we could see downtown and hoped the river would be a bit more calm as it narrowed. Let’s just say, we’ve been in worse waves 😬

We cruised through downtown, this time spotting more things, like a sports arena, historic old hotels and waterfront living with condos and boat slips. We went through the town, past the football stadium and were back into the industrial/shipping area that went on for miles. At this point the North side of the river contained industry and the south side beautiful lakefront homes.

We also spotted these grain elevators with the beautiful artwork on them that we missed the first time through. We were unable to find any information on the artist or subjects.

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We had no issues, except for the waves, until we saw a huge tow heading our way. It appeared to be a tugboat, a barge and a crane on a barge. We kept to the right of the channel moving along at about 8 mph. We went under a bridge and a curve in the river. The tow seemed to be pushing toward our side of the river. We had been looking at it in the binoculars, trying to determine its track and speed. At one point, our water was getting too shallow for our comfort so we crossed over in front of it to get on the wider side of the river and allow the tow the room it needed. At this same point, we realized it wasn’t moving! It was anchored!!! Ok, we know it sounds dumb but you could see a bit of splash off the front of the barges from waves and current and we were moving so it did seem like a slow moving tow. We felt a bit foolish but did hail the sailboat following us to warn them of the illusion of the moving/anchored tow around a bend.

Soon, we were making the turn south on to the Intracoastal Waterway [ICW]. It was a much narrower waterway so we no longer had the huge waves to fight. We could see the salt spray on our rails and windows. Back to scrubbing the boat!

Now, beautiful homes lined both sides of the ICW, with the requisite docks, decks and boats. This is the Florida we did not see much of along the St. John’s river. We also had to contend with center cockpit boats cruising past us without throttling down. The wakes some of these boats leave can make our little trawler rock-n-roll. You try to turn into the wake waves but sometimes don’t get the chance. Darn Grady Whites 😉

Before our approach to the Pablo Creek Bridge, we noted a very large boat fall in back of the sailboat who had been behind us. He appeared to be itching to pass us all but held back. As we got closer, a sailboat pulled out of an anchorage right in front of us (darn whistle pissers) causing the whole line of boats to slow down and distance from each other. Passing under the bridge turned out to be a non event but the water was tossing about every which way and it was slack tide. Maybe as a warning, there was a capsized sailboat on the bridge embankment, probably left over from a hurricane.

I was watching the motor yacht still two boats behind us to see when it would make its move to pass. Big boats and curvy waterways sometimes don’t go together very well. I could see the telltale swirl design on its bow. This boat was a Trumpy!! For those of you have followed our boating tales, you know we have a fascination with these old, elegant yachts. This one was the Innisfail, currently a charter boat out of Charleston. We think this was the 7th Trumpy we have encountered. They were custom made for each owner with a white hull and wood cabin above decks. They have the signature scrollwork on the bow which incorporates a capital T for Trumpy. The name comes from John Trumpy, Sr., a Naval Architect. They were built from the 1920’s to 1974. 

Innisfail was commissioned by Joseph Cudahy, a Chicago business man of Irish heritage. She served as an armed patrol boat during WWII and then served US Presidents until she was decommissioned in 1965. She was returned to private ownership and used as a charter vessel in Chicago and Florida. In 2007 she was painstakingly restored to her original 1930’s condition. Innisfail is a poetic name for Ireland. We consider ourselves very lucky to keep seeing these stunning boats.

We passed by the marina where we had planned to spend the night. Two reasons: we decided it was too early to stop and second, the reservation App, Swift Harbor, initially responded to us but never confirmed we had a slip. Being old school, we would much rather call a marina and talk to a person about a slip than get one by App. We like getting more information from a live person. Sometimes approaches are tricky, port or starboard docking, fuel, pump out, tides, etc.

We did have an address for friends’ brother’s waterfront home and were able to pinpoint it on google maps and snap a picture. Nice house and it was fun looking for it as we cruised along.

Now we are past the Jacksonville waterfront homes (man, there are a lot of them) and in a wildlife preserve. Here, the only boats we see are an occasional cruiser heading North (what??), crab boats and one Wake Boat with a young boy practicing his moves.

We intended to go into Vilano Beach and stop for the night but by now the day was getting long. We noted a sailboat anchored behind a submerged sand bar in a wide part of the river and it looked nice, quiet and off the channel. Also, there were a few small beach areas which we needed to take doggie to shore. As we were anchoring, we noticed the neighboring boat bringing their black lab to shore.

There are tons of crab pots here and our timing was such that the crabber was out in his boat zig zagging between all the pots to check them. He had a pod of pelicans following him in case he tossed remnants of bait or something. We noted that they did not go after the reject crabs he tossed back in the water. I was up on the fly bridge when the crabber came to a pot close by us. He obviously had been doing this a long time. He scooted off with a wave and his fleet of pelicans in tow.

A very nice evening at anchor, possibly our last one on this trip….

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