Time 'n Tide

Sun-Wed, March 19-22, 2017

We slowly made our way out of Florida. There is no perfect way to time the tides, but we did really well the last part of the St. Johns River. The outgoing tide pulled us down river over 9 mph! Really fast for our old boat!! 

We pulled into a free dock-Jim King State Park on Sisters Creek. Fantastic floating dock, no piling to try to not hit! And guess who catches our dock line--Christy from Folly Girl! We met them at Ft. Pierce! Then Lorenzo and Lois show up! He was the one that told us about this free dock and many other helpful hints about transiting up the East Coast.

The next day we departed Jim King Park and headed north. We pulled into the channel in front of a tug boat but it did not have any barges. Well it didn't take us too long to run into mud. The tug went on by and provided just enough wake for the boat to back off the mud. We followed the tug for several hours til it looked like it stopped. We slowed down, then stopped, then turned circles until the tug got out of the mud and moved forward. That happened two more times, and we were all in the channel!!! This part of the ICW needs dredged. But there is never enough money allocated to dredging all parts of the ICW. Maybe we should have timed it to wait for a rising tide.

This part of the ICW got hit pretty bad last year by Hurricane Matthew. This marina in Fernandina Beach is still closed although cleanup and repairs are in progress.

St. Andrew Sound looked like a big body of water, but again we had to follow the markers to stay in deep water.

We managed to put 60 miles of water behind us today. Even if it was 20 degrees colder (like it is supposed to be tomorrow), it would still be paradise here at Brunswick Landing Marina with FREE beer and wine. Oh, and free washers and dryers! Self serve though.