Passage - Jacksonville City Dock to Lang Marina St. Marys, GA
8:30 AM Underway
1:10 PM Docked Jacksonville City Dock
6.1 engine hours 31 miles

Last night at the dock was nice. Susan cooked aboard and we enjoyed the weather and sights.

We got away this morning fairly early as we know there is some bad weather advancing from the west. Today is going to be the last day in Florida. That’s kind of sad, but like a magnet we are being drawn forward, toward home. We had a very nice ride early this morning. No more mangroves - only seagrass now. The wind picked up from the south, building all day long. Of course the wind was near 20 MPH as we neared St. Marys, Ga. Hey, all boaters, doesn’t the wind always pick up as you dock? HA! The dock master was at lunch as we docked on the outside face dock of Lang’s Marina. We figured we might have to move, but took the spot as the wind would blow us to the dock with an easy tie. A fellow boater took Susan’s bow line and made it fast to the dock cleat and I gently went forward to pull in the stern with the wind helping then, also. We look like we know what we are doing.

After the docking was completed, we strolled up to the dock master’s office and since he was still not back from lunch, we took a short stroll of St. Marys historic district. Kind of got the lay of the land, as they say. (Really looking at restaurants and the park ferry service that takes you to Cumberland Island https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Island ). Strolled back to the marina and met Nat the 85 (86 next month) year old dock master. He is there 7 days a week. Quite a marvelous man for sure. We settled up with him for a 3 day stay for the bad weather on the way. We got back to the boat as the wind became stronger and the fenders started popping out between the boat and the floating dock - too strong a force to push the boat off. I started the engine to help move the boat slightly off the dock, in order to put the fenders back in the water. The strong current was running out and the wind was blowing 22mph the other direction causing short chop to slam the boat around the floating concrete dock. Funny thing was it was almost calm on the other side of the floating dock. About the same time the wind backed off, so did the the tide and the boat started riding normally. I’m going to ask for an inside slip and move tomorrow. We are here for 3 days.
The weather is not looking good ( 90% chance of thunderstorms Friday, Saturday and Sunday ) to go to Cumberland Island.

We were watching the thunderstorm line advancing toward us on the weather radar. So, before today's thunderstorm line arrived, we walked into town and had dinner. As we got on the boat, lightning started showing up in the distance and the wind picked up. We got rain, but the lightning skirted around us.

Today’s picture is a weird industrial sunset at Jacksonville City Dock.