Total Distance: 45 Miles Under Sail: 0
Average Speed: 2.9 kts
Conditions: Partly Cloudy, 50-60 F, Wind Northwest at 15-20 kts, Seas 2-4 ft

This is my day from hell. It starts at being underway at 730 a.m. to a very brisk 40 degree windy day. I expected to be elated since I would finally cross in to Floridian waters today. Just a short distance to finish the Cumberland River, across the Cumberland Sound into the Amelia River, pass Fernandina Beach and Nassau Sound, down Sawpit Creek to cross the St Johns River and anchor at Pablo Creek near Atlantic Beach. Bitterly cold, I was excited to be only about 250 miles from my destination. The cold must have affected my brain because I made a bad decision that lead to a lot of trouble.

I reached Pablo Creek by 3 pm and remembered that last year I had to wait for the tide to rise to get out of it. So I continued on without a definite anchorage in mind. First mistake. Within the next hour I realized there would be no anchorages available and that I would even have to return north to find a marina for the night. In turning about I meet up with a shoal at the bottom of an ebbing tide and was unable to kedge off. I decided to wait for the tide to float off and called a marina for reservations expecting to get off with the next hour or two. Second mistake. It was 5 hours later after spending time at a 25 degree angle when I was finally kedged free and headed for a marina with no dock staff available. I carefully travel back making no more that 4 knots afraid of another grounding in the dark and finally found the ICW marker that should lead into the marina channel just north of the McCormick Bridge in Jacksonville Beach. Unfortunately the marina channel markers were no more than poles in the water with no reflective tape and to dark to see. I kept making approaches using GPS waypoints but running into skinny water. The long and short of it was that after about 5 different approach angles on a falling tide with against 15 knots of wind I was aground again and called it a night at 2 a.m. I snuggled in athwartships for the night and used SeaTow the next day to get me off. December 8th will now be my day of infamy.