May 2 Monday.
Left Rivers Edge marina at 7:50 AM. Mark had to take back the rental car and they didn’t open until 7:30 AM. Have 64 miles to go today to get up to the Marina at Ortega Landing. We were backed into the slip. The current was moving at .8 knots pushing the boat forward out of the slip. We had to motor forward enough to clear a piling on our right before we could start our turn. By the time John turned the boat broadside to the current, the current almost pushed us into some boats across the way (it was very tight and boats were sticking out the back of their slips). See the picture below. You can just see the outboard motor tipped up on a small boat on the right.
John had to do some high power maneuvering. We were already moving forward. He had to go into reverse, throttle up to stop the forward motion. He quickly moved the boat backwards to where there was a wider area in the fairway with enough room to swing the back of the boat around to get the bow into the current, just a little (because there was no more time or space before we got close to things again). Then, he had to power our way out of the fairway to clear all of the boats, pilings, dock and the boat on the end of the T head. Whew, that was close!
Long day traveling today. Saw some beautiful homes with great docks. Watched dolphins swimming on our bow wave. It looked like a mother and child. I decided not to sing to them and they stayed with us.
The St. John’s River is the longest river in Florida. At 310 miles, it winds through or borders twelve counties. It is often described as “lazy ” as it is one of the few rivers in this country that flow north. In order to get to the St. John’s River, you need to turn off of the ICW at a shipping channel where huge freighters transit the area. Luckily there wasn’t any major traffic flowing but as we traveled up the river we did see some interesting freighters being offloaded as we cruised by.
These big cranes were picking up one and two containers at a time
These things are huge.
Not really sure why this cruise line ship is here. Maybe a repair facility but, we did see a bunch of people on board.
A constant stream of cars came driving out of this ship.
As we traveled up the Jacksonville part of the the St. John’s we saw the Jacksonville Jaguars Football Stadium, and the city skyline of Jacksonville and various other interesting sites. Very hot today. Not much breeze as we were cruising.
Got into Marina at Ortega Landing at 4:45 PM. The picture below is of our slip at the Marina at Ortega Landing on the Ortega River just off the St. Johns River. A close look will reveal the fact that we have two 15 foot wide boats in a slip that is only 32 feet wide. Very very tight fit. Nothing like rafting up with your neighbor while you are in your slip.
John backed in first. We had part time dock hand helping us but he wasn’t very attentive. As we approached and John sized up the situation he asked the dock hand how wide the slip was and told him that our boat was 15 feet wide. The dock hand responded and said “No problem, the slip is 16 feet wide and you will fit right in”. After we were secured, we called Mark and told him to come in. John decided to put out fenders on our boat to make the task of backing in easier for Mark on Mara Beel because he would literally be inches away from our boat. The Marina at Ortega Landing is a great marina. Pool, hot tub, Captains lounge, free laundry, free grills, free bicycles, and just beautiful. We were so hot from the trip that right after we got in, we went to the pool.
Becky and I went to the Publix and got dinner. Publix is the most popular and nicest grocery store in Florida. It isn’t cheap and I have spent a lot of money at this franchise. From their seafood department, you can order fresh seafood meals in a bag. All you have to do is bake them for 20-25 minutes right in the bag and you have a full meal. There are 5 different meals, and you can put in any seafood that you want in the meal. Jan Stewart introduced us to these when we first got to Florida and we have enjoyed them all winter.
May 3 Tuesday
Lazy morning working on blog and other things. In the afternoon, we cleaned the isinglass and put Plexus on it. Hopefully it will stay clean for a while. Becky, Julie and I went to Publix and John and Mark went to West Marine AGAIN. Both are really close to the marina, not even a quarter of a mile away. That night, Julie and Andy from Fruitcakes joined Mara Beel and us on Short Vacation for docktails. Andy and Julie told us about their trip that they had just returned from up and down the St. Johns River. They gave us some tips about what we will be seeing and places not to be missed.
May 4 Wednesday
It looked like rain in the morning but we decided to leave anyway. We wanted to leave the marina at high tide since we were in a shallow slip. High tide would not occur until 11:30 in the morning. But, to do 7o miles we need to move out very early in the morning. We decided to leave and go down by Green Cove Springs and anchor for the evening. Mara Beel decided to stay back one more day at Marina at Ortega landing. They can travel faster and they are going to do 70 miles tomorrow. Mark decided to move out to a T head dock when we left to be able to get out at low tide the next day.
We stopped at Hibernia point quite a bit north of Green Cove Springs. We could just see a wall of rain and dark clouds in front of us and decided to stop at 1:30 PM. This anchorage is very well protected, but you do have to watch out for crab pots. Winds picked up to about 25 or 30 miles an hour but our 88 lb. anchor with 120 foot of chain held real well. About 4 o’clock the winds and rain calmed down so we decided to pick up anchor and keep on moving south. Lots of mud on the anchor. It took about a half hour and a lot of raw water spray to wash the mud off of it and pull it up. We went south about 10 more miles and stopped at a anchorage called Bayard Point. Had to try three times to make the anchor set. It was a very muddy bottom and we kept moving when we tried power up to set the anchor. Lots of crab pots around but we came inside of them in about 8 foot of water and dropped anchor and it stuck there. Had a great night on the hook. This anchoring made us miss our Red Neck Yacht club anchorages on the Mississippi River.
Thursday, May 5 Happy Cinco de Mayo Day
Had a good night at anchor. The winds came up around 3 o’clock and the water slapped on the back of the boat for about an hour (yep, back of boat – the tide changed and we were pointed into the current, but the wind pushed waves up on our stern).
We left our Anchorage at 8:02 AM. John had to hose off quite a bit of mud from the anchor and chain. So much for a sandy bottom that was quoted in Active Captain! We are sure glad that we have a raw water pump to take water from the river to clean the chain.
Traveling through the St. John’s we came across to quite a few narrow narrow channels with lots of crab pots all around, in the channel and outside of the channel. This is really our first dealings with this many crab pots.
Arrived at Acosta Creek Marina at around 1:10 PM. Mara Beel came in just behind us at about at 1:45 PM.
The current helped us and we averaged about 8.46 miles an hour. They averaged about 9.5 miles an hour. Lots and lots of wind at about 20 to 22 mph.
These are burgiees (flags) that we fly on our boat. The top one stands for American Great Loop Cruising Association. The bottom one stands for Marine Trawlers Owners Association. Both were really whipping around in the strong wind today.
The owners of the marina weren’t there so some of the people that have slips at the marina came to help pull us in. Nice little Marina for a really good price. People on the docks were real friendly. Bud, a guy that has lived at the marina for over two decades, gave me a brand new can of Old Bay seasoning so I could try it.
Friday, May 6
Left Acosta Marina at 7 o’clock in the morning with the help of one of the guys that lives at the marina. Traveled about 49 miles and got to Hontoon Landing Resort and Marina at around 1:15 PM. This part of the trip was a lot more exciting. Saw some awfully big turtles, about three big alligators, and lots of birds. We dodged crab pots that were in the channel, crossed Lake George, and saw some interesting things as we came to the rustic and winding parts of the river.
Guys pulling up a cage. We aren’t sure if it is a crab pot or not.
Saw quite a few air boats on the river. They are really loud.
Apparently, parking spots are high demand here…
The channel snakes a round quite a bit and we had to keep our eyes open for crab pots and channel markers. This reminded me a lot of the Mississippi River, except for the alligators. Hontoon Landing Resort and Marina only had room for our boat so Mara Beel ended up going almost right across the river to stay at the Hontoon State Park. We could almost yell across the river at each other.
Hontoon Landing Resort and Marina
Short Vacation is on one side of the river
Mara Beel had to move over to the State Park on the other side of the river because the only slip they had left required a power cord to reach over 100 feet because the water was too shallow to pull all the way into the slip.
After we both got settled, we put our Dinghys in the water and went for a little ride. Feels so good to be back out in the dinghy, and she’s working great this time. We realized that we did have bad gas the last time that we used the her. Thank God we had 2 gas tanks and we put the right kind of gas in the 2nd tank.
Mara Beel had to dinghy over to our side of the river to come and join us on our boat for dinner.
Saturday, May 7
At 7 AM we took the two dinghys and went for about a 3 hour ride.
We were out so early that the fog hadn’t lifted yet.
Mark took us through a little area called Snake Creek that had only about 2.5 ft. depth. We didn’t see any snakes so we figured that the Creek got its name from all the twists and turns that it made. At the very end of the creek we had to cut our way through hyacinth plants to exit.
It brought us out to the Blue Spring State Park. Lots of people kayaking, picnicking and enjoying this park. It had a really clear spring in it that people were swimming in. There were signs all over telling you that alligators swim here as well.
The center hole where the springs came up is 110 foot deep and scuba divers come to dive into it. You must be certified as a cave diver to go in it though.
This is where Manatee hang out in the winter time. It was a little too cold for us to put our swimming suits on this morning.
These were some of the kayaks that people rented from the Blue Springs State Park.
John and Kathy Scott drove over from The Villages to see Mara Beel. They took the ferry across to the state park to put up some shelves that John had made for Mara Beel. We had a very nice dinner and watched the Kentucky Derby with our derby hats on. We all threw a few bucks into a pool for the derby. Mark took first place and second place with the horses that he drew.
He was a little cocky and predicted taking 2 out of 3 wins. We had $10 for win $5 for a second place and $3 for show.
Sunday, May 8
Hontoon landing was the farthest point up river that we wanted to go. The river continues to go on all the way to Sanford but we felt that this was a good turn around point. We left Hontoon Landing Marina and Hontoon State Park at around 12:15 PM. We started heading down river even though we were headed north. John decided to slow down more and have a leisurely ride looking for wildlife. That really helped because we saw around five or six alligators. Got to Morrison Island Anchorage at around 4 PM. We decided to raft together for the evening since there was no tide or current and no wind. This was the first time that we actually rafted up with anyone in the DeFever. We even put out a rear anchor.
We dropped our dinghy and took a ride to look at some other anchorages in the area around us. We saw a tree that birds had taken over and a boat that had seen better days. We also saw a large alligator sprawled out on the big tree. Just a lazy Sunday afternoon nap for the gator.
Our two boats anchored together for the night.
This poor boat has seen better days.
That night we had a steak dinner on the back of Short Vacation and watched alligators slowly swim by both sides of our boats.
Monday, May 9
Left our anchorage around 8:15 AM. We got to the entrance to the lake. We came out of the narrow part of the river and head out the chute out into the lake. Fishermen fishing right in the chute.
This is the exit from the river out to Lake George.
The water was like glass. It made it very easy to see crab pots. Also, we struck off at an angle heading toward the spring rather than following the channel. The lake was plenty deep.
Heading over to Silver Glen Springs. We anchored right outside of Silver Glen springs. We dropped the dinghys and explored Silver Glen Springs.
We had to anchor almost a mile out from shore so we could dinghy into the springs. It was shallow in close to shore.
Sign at the entrance of Silver Glen Springs.
Becky taking pictures of the shallow water and the fish swimming under the boat.
It has beautiful clear water but pretty shallow. There are about five boats that were anchored in there. Local knowledge is required to get in.
You could see all the way to the bottom. This is another place that people love to come and swim. The water is so clear and looked so refreshing. I stuck my foot in the water and John reminded me that there ARE alligators in these waters. Wish that we had more time so that we could have explored the area more.
We drove back out into the lake to the boats. Then, put the dinghies up and continued on down the river through Lake George to Palatka.
We anchored just in front of the Boat House marina in Palatka. Becky was sick and Mark wanted to stay with her, so John and I dropped the dinghy and took it about 1 mile over to a busy restaurant called Corky Bells for dinner. Food was pretty good but service was terrible.
Becky took a picture of our boat at anchor at sunrise on the St. John’s river at Palatka.
Tuesday, May 10
Pulled anchor around 10:30 AM and slid into the Boathouse Marina in Palatka right by our anchorage. We needed to pump out and Mara Beel needed to take on some water. It costs $1 per foot and five dollars for electricity per night. This is a great nightly rate. Skip is the dockmaster that owns and runs the whole marina. He was running an errand, so he gave John a ride to the closest Publix to get some beer and pop. A lot of people ask us what we do with all your time on the boat. Much like a house there is always maintenance and cleaning to be done. Since we had been anchoring out, the boat was filthy so Pam scrubbed down the boat, while John got rid of some bad gasoline that we had in one of the gas tanks for the dinghy. Thank God we had another tank that had good fuel in it. We can never put ethanol blended gasoline in the dinghy again. We had something called phase separation with our fuel and we were lucky that we didn’t hurt the engine. That evening we walked about 1/3 mile to Angels ( the oldest diner in Florida) for dinner. It looks like a railroad car. Good burgers.
Wednesday, May 11
Left Boathouse Marina in Palatka at 7 AM. Heading to Marina at Ortega Landing. Cruised around 46 miles with beautiful calm water and the current sending us down river. We got to Marina at Ortega Landing around 1:00. Becky is feeling a little better so we went to Panera Bread for lunch. Ran into Ron and Charma Owens in the office. We paid for a week at the marina and they let us split it with the 2 days before we left to go up the St. John’s and when we returned.
Thursday May 12
Pam cleaned the inside of the boat and we went over to Ron and Charma’s boat “Journey On” for docktails. It was good to catch up with them again. They used to own a 41’and a 44′ DeFever. They are still quite active in the DeFever Crusiers group and know a lot of DeFever owners even though they now own a Hatteras. Ironically, they used to live in Rockford for a while.
Friday May 13
Took Mark and Becky to the Sanford/Orlando airport. They are flying to Moline and then driving to Alta by St Louis. Becky received an award for a photo that she submitted to the Mississippi River Photo Shootout so they are attending the ceremony. On the way back to our marina we decided that we would visit the town of Green Cove Springs. This is the town that we have our mail shipped to. There is a company called St. Brendan’s Isle that has been providing Mail Forwarding Services for LiveAboard Cruisers and RVers since 1988. This is a great mailing service. They will receive, hold, scan, and forward our mail. They will then ship it to us when we are at a place long enough to get mail. We went to our ‘new address’ 411 Walnut st. only to find that they aren’t there!
We are at our address at 411 Walnut St. Where is our mail service?
Come to find out they had outgrown that building and had moved to another location about 3 miles away, but could still keep the address of 411 Walnut.
John at the new address.
Rows and rows and rows of mailboxes. Very efficient company.
Saturday and Sunday May 14-15
Mainly worked at completing this blog. It has been a labor of love from both of us to share our information with you. John has done the hardest part of putting everything together getting the pictures ready to post and learning how to do everything and then having to teach me. We are still not 100% sure of how everything works but we will try to continue to share things as they come up. Please let us know if we should change anything or if you have any questions about what we are doing out here. On Sunday, we went to the local Methodist Church and then went shopping for some last minute things. We found a great shopping mall called St John’s Town Center. Lots of great stores in here.
Monday – Wednesday May 16- 18
Mark and Becky got back from the airport late Monday night. They rented a mini van that they will pack up and drive back to Muscatine Iowa next week. They will be going home for the summer and leave their boat in St John’s Boat yard. I went grocery shopping, got a pedicure, and both John and I had hair appointments. We went to the most unusual used book store right by the marina called Chamblin Bookmine. It is HUGE and I have never seen anything like it. They have over 2 million used books for sale. I can’t believe that they know where everything is. Viola (John’s mom) would have been in heaven at this store. After checking the weather we decided to leave on Thursday morning and go to Fernandina Beach instead of anchoring at Cumberland Island. This would be an easier place for Mark and Becky to take their boat from when they take it to St Mary’s Boat yard on Sunday. Becky and I took her rental van to Fernandina Harbor Marina. We will leave the Odyssey here until Sunday and then we will shuttle it up north, hopefully to Savannah GA. It has been great having it, but it does take some thought on how we get it to the next place.
