Moving South

 I have had trouble getting inspired to write in this blog. I normally have that problem when nothing out of the ordinary is happening in our lives. It is kind of strange that moving down the east coast of the US via sailboat has become "ordinary".  Well,  I guess I should catch up our story. 

In my last entry, we had just left Brunswick, Georgia and motored down the ICW to St. Mary's Georgia. We had a blow coming in out of the north and St. Mary's is a good place to wait out a northern blow. We hung out on anchor for 4 nights. We never saw more than 25 knots of wind. We went to shore each day and enjoyed our walks around the very historic town. We especially enjoyed our visit to the very historic cemetery. There are 7 graves of Revolutionary War soldiers in that cemetery. 

An angel statue on one of the many ornate grave stones in this very old cemetery. 

After 4 days in St. Mary's, the weather eased and we were ready to get moving south. The first day was an easy 27 nm motor down to Jacksonville, Florida. We had no problems on the trip until we arrived at the free dock in Sisters Creek. There is very strong current there and the wind picked up to around 15 knots just as we were ready to make the move to the dock. The good news is that we nailed it and got tied up. 

This is the Jacksonville free dock. It even has free water. There was just us and two other boats. 

After we were all set, I went below and heard a strange noise that took me a minute to figure out what it was. It was our bilge pump running. I checked the bilge and it was empty, but the shaft seal was dripping. It normally does not drip at all when the shaft is not turning. I shut the pump off and then turned it back on and it stayed off. That was strange. I then tightened up the shaft seal to stop the leak. That would require me to make many adjustments over the next few days to find the perfect place where it does not leak, but is loose enough to not get too hot. It took me most of the next day to get it right. The bilge pump issue will be fully diagnosed and repaired in a later entry. The good news is that it was pumping fine, it just would not shut off when the bilge was empty. Not a major problem as long as we are on the boat to monitor it. We do still have a second pump that is working fine and a manual pump as a final fail-safe. 

The following day, which was now November 5th, we motored further south. We first had to go through the St. John's river, which is the inlet to the port of Jacksonville and a major Naval Base. 

Jacksonville Naval Base

A US Navy ship in dry dock at Jacksonville.

 After making it through the shipping channel, we had a nice cruise down the ICW. The first issue was a bridge at Pablo Creek. It is a very narrow channel under the bridge and the current can really rip through there. I had checked the tides and my timing was good. We hit it with minimal current and it was a non issue. 

Just after the bridge we had a motor vessel pass us. The crazy thing is that he was going faster than us, but he was weaving all over the waterway. I don't know if he was under the influence of something or not, but it was pretty crazy to watch. We followed him all the way to St. Augustine. 

If you look closely you can see the weaving pattern of the boat in front of us. There were a number of oncoming boats that had to turn quickly to avoid him. The radio traffic was strong worded. 

This is a narrow part of the ICW with nice homes with docks on the left bank heading south. 

We traveled 35.5 nm and made it to St. Augustine. We called the City Marina and were assigned a mooring ball. The good news is that it was on the south side of the Bridge of Lions. We waited with a number of other boats for the next half hour opening and then proceeded to our home for the night. 

We had to go ashore to check in, so we got the dinghy down and went to the dinghy dock. After checking in, we took showers and took a walk up onto the bridge. We have been to St. Augustine many times, but this is the first time we took a walk over the bridge. 

The main square in St. Augustine

The view looking north off of the Bridge of Lions.

The view of the south Mooring Field. SHIFT is in the middle of all of that. 

We made it back to the boat just before dark. We raised the dinghy into travel position and were ready to move again the following morning. We had good weather to travel, so we decided to keep moving. In my next entry I will write about the next few stops as we make the slow trip south at about 6 knots.