Arrived at the Ortega Yacht Club Marina
29 April 2014 | Jacksonville, FL
John Stevenson
We arrived at the OYCM last night just about sunset.
By early Monday morning we knew we would be arriving off the St. John River inlet at the time of max ebb current, which can be 2.5 kts. In order to avoid having to motor up the St. John against that current we planned to anchor as we did on departure in the ICW near the St. John entrance. However, when we entered the river the wind, which had been light all day, freshened out of the SE. That would have made that anchorage more iffy than it normally is. So we elected to continue up the St. John, making less than 5 kts over the bottom, to the OYCM. Our main concern was to get to the Ortega River before sunset. There really is no channel from the St. John to the Ortega, and it is shallow. You just feel your way in the first time and then follow that track after that. I'd prefer to do that in the daylight. If we arrived after dark and decided to not go into the Ortega we could always tie to one of free docks provided by Jacksonville so there was no real risk in our plans. We did arrive off the Ortega about 1/2 hour before sunset, but then I discovered I had some how removed my old track into the river from my chartplotter. I've lost a lot of brain cells in the last decade or two, but fortunately the cells that contained the memory of that track were still in place and we entered the Ortega and tied up to the OYCM without a problem.
Today our main task is to get to the Homeland Security office in JAX so that Steve can check-in from the Bahamas. Then clean up the boat.
John and Steve