Farewell to Nemo
4/14
We decided to stay one more night in Marineland. Some crazy weather came through last night. The boats were heeling at the docks. Don saw 44 kts. on his meter. Today is market day. We loaded up on fresh produce, bread and pastries. The marina gave us free passes to Marineland Dolphin adventure, so we spent the afternoon there.
4/15
Don and Judy have decided to skip St. Augustine and go offshore from Mayport inlet at Jacksonville. We are not in a hurry, so we plan to stop in St. Augustine. We said our"goodbyes" and saw Nemo off at 8a.m. We left the marina at 8:40 a.m. It was a nice short day to St. Augustine. We arrived at the fuel dock at 11:40 and were in our slip at noon. We spent the afternoon strolling around the historic district and had a Sangria at a little cafe on a balcony overlooking the crowds of tourists. We took an evening walk and ended up at O.C. White's for dinner. We sat on the patio and enjoyed the music.
4/16
Based on the weather predictions we decided to go offshore, leaving through the inlet at St. Augustine and travel to Charleston. The next good window looks to be one or even two weeks away. We left the municipal marina at 8:45 a.m. and went through the Bridge of Lions on the 9 o'clock opening. The inlet here has just been dredged. We talked with Don. They got an early start too out of the Mayport inlet near Jacksonville. We agreed to check in with them at noon. We knew that the tide was starting to come in already, but we didn't expect such a rage. It was a little calmer once we cleared the channel and got into deeper water. The winds were higher than predicted and on our nose. The winds were supposed to clock around to the south but never did. The seas were confused with the wind and waves in opposing directions. Between the time we talked to Don again at noon and 2 p.m. the conditions continued to get worse. We decided to go in at the Mayport inlet and Nemo headed in at St. Mary's, Georgia. The St. John's River was busy with tugs, ferrys and ships. Luckily there was one spot left for us on the dock at Sister's Creek and a couple of nice guys to catch our lines. Captain Carl did a fast 180 degrees and slipped right in between two other boats. The tide was ripping down the dock. We met some of the other people on the dock. The couple behind us with three boys are on a Shannon 28 from Maine. One was climbing the rigging. They are making there way back from the Florida Keys and will be leaving their boat in Deltaville to sell. They're looking for a bigger boat. We had BLT's on raisin bread for dinner and watched a few old episodes of Friends. There is some nasty weather coming Friday. Looks like we will be crawling along the ICW. On the bright side, we can see some of our favorite places in Georgia!