On shore
05 April 2015 | Green Cove Springs
We left St Augustine early Tuesday morning and had a good trip up the ICW. I took less time than we thought so we arrived at the St. John River earlier than we planned. We had current against us but it eased off as we went went further up stream. We were passed by two huge ships on the way. One going down river and one coming up. We arrived in Jacksonville and the tide was now slack. We turned into Metropolitan Park and tied up to the dock. When we came in and turned around we hit a life ring and knocked it into the water. An alarm went off and David had to walk around, get the buoy and put it back in place before the alarm stopped. We were the only ones here so no one will ever know that it happened.
We called the Main St Lift Bridge to see if we had to give lots of notice that we wanted to come through. They are still working on it and they want us to come through at 6:30 am, plus call at 5:30 to check and make sure. So the next morning we are up and call. They say to come up to the bridge and they will open. We are just a mile away so we head out. When we get close they get the workers out from under the bridge and start to open. They only raise about 2 feet when it stops, they are stuck. It is another 5 minutes before they start moving again but it seemed a lot longer to us. We get through and see the RR bridge is open so we rush through it. This is the last bridge we have to wait for. It is still dark so we drift around here until it is light enough to see any crab pots.
We motor up the river for about an hour and then put up the jib and motor sail the rest of the way up. We tie up to the wharf and go into the marina for the keys to the car. What a relief to walk in and see the car is safe and it starts right up. We had thought a lot about what happened last year and were happy that all was well this year.
Friday we came out of the water in the afternoon and went into the work yard. We have our name down to go from the work yard into storage on Thursday.