Passage - Anchorage Matanzas River to Jacksonville City Dock
9:53 AM Underway
4:12 PM Docked Jacksonville City Dock
7.5 engine hours 45 miles

Beautiful moon set as the sun rose. Also, I did stay up for the Atlas Rocket blast off last night! It was clearly visible from our anchorage, even though Cape Canaveral js 90 miles away. I had exchanged emails, for several years, with a former Albin 36 owner who had moved up to a 42’ Kadey Krogen. Terry and Donna had nice things to say about the Albin. They live aboard all the time and just wanted a little more room. We caught a glimpse of their boat as we passed the St Augustine mooring ball field. I gave them a call to just drop by, but they had gone ashore so we continued north. Terry and Donna will be back in Chesapeake this summer and we will catch up with them then. Interesting or alarming was a lot of Border Patrol Boats hovering around St. Augustine. The Brussels terrorist events the day before made me think the Border Patrol was on high alert. It could possibly have been training exercises, as their home base is near.
We are starting to get into the bigger tide swings with their strong currents. I ran hard for several hours, bucking the tide, and then like magic, we started getting a push. We were miles away from the next inlet. Water coming out of large tidal creeks flows in and out of the AICW. There are not predictive tables for these currents. All of the planning guides say not to try to time your day around the currents as they hinder and help all along the route.
The rest of the day’s trip was pretty calm. We had a following breeze that was getting stronger as the day progressed. We had to cross the St. Johns River with all the military traffic, security boats, noise from helicopters and 15 knot commercial ships. The current is very strong as you cross from one side to the continuing AICW on the other side. I checked the AIS with 50 vessels being displayed and saw the path was clear to cross the river. Still, you feel like there ought to be a stop light for the AICW on both sides of the river!

Our destination was not much further. We tied up at the Jacksonville City Dock for the night. A nice guy from the motor vessel Yolo, from Ft. Monroe, VA, helped the Liquid Therapy crew tie up in the by now very windy conditions. He and wife will have completed their navigation of the Great Loop when they get home to Ft. Monroe. We are aboard and are trying to plan if we should skip Fernandina, FL and head to St. Mary’s, GA. We have stopped at Fernandina three times, yet never been to St. Mary’s. We are leaning toward this as a ‘bad weather layover’ in Georgia. St. Mary’s is very quaint, has good restaurants, as well as a ferry that will take us to explore nearby Cumberland Island and see the Carnegie mansion ruins. Who knows, we may see some wild horses and other sights that Mother Nature has to offer on this now abandoned island.

Today’s picture is the full moon setting in the twilight of morning.