We were ready to bust from Ortega landing this morning with a plan to go to Jacksonville Landing and tie up for the night. From the time we had our first cup of coffee until just about departure time the wind came up fast and furious. After consultation with the weather on line. Al felt we would be best staying put for one more day. The wind is to reach upwards of 45 mph and as of this writing its getting very black out side and a thunderstorm is looming.

We plan to post our findings about this marina on Active Captain and Cruisers net once we depart. After reading some of the reviews from those sources, I am wondering if the moderators don't pick the more sugar coated reports for publication. We'll see, since our experience here has not been as glowing as the reports I've read thus far.

What I will report is this:

PROS:

Its very clean and modern, has a pool and hot tub, it is gated. The cruisers lounge is lovely. Publix and select Department stores are a 10 minute walk. AND there is a West Marine in the same shopping area, which for the second time ever blows my theory that West Marine's mandate is to position themselves as far away from a marina as is possible. There are some nice restaurants near by. Oh yes there is free laundry.

CONS:

I guess depending on what your needs are, we are not finding it particularly transient friendly here. They advertise 1.75/ft with a supposed discount if you are an MTOA member or looper, but the rate sticks at 1.75/ft, so I'm not seeing a discount. And there is a $15 charge for a pump out. You are only allowed stern to your slip. There is rarely anyone in the office. The dock hand we have met most is Bruce and he is top notch. The marina Manager, Kris lacks in customer service skills, in my opinion. We seemed to have gotten off to a bad start with him from the get go. We arrived in near torrential rain, and despite frequent hailing on our VHF there was no answer. When we arrived we picked the first easiest place to get into. Al went to the office and found out we needed to move the boat , twice, because the weather was getting nastier by the minute we were allowed to go in bow first, because we "would only be around a week". But its a hard and fast rule that you must be stern in.

As we are on the lookout for the ideal Marina to keep CK from say April to October, on paper this Marina looked like it had most of the amenities on our wish list as per Active Captain. The kicker is, they don't "really" want live aboards, although there are live aboards here but they are not referred to as such. The biggest problem is this marina WILL NOT LET YOU RECEIVE MAIL OR PACKAGES HERE. This is a HUGE draw back for us. The solution is to get a box at the local UPS but we are told you must take a year contract.

We get the impression that they like you best here if you just park your boat and come to take it out for a run occasionally. We will keep looking for a more perfect fit for our needs, although we haven't totally excluded this place as a possibility.

In anticipation of the impending storm we brought the lettuce crops in. They have just recovered from the pounding rain we came in on last Tuesday afternoon.