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From: Bob Williamson (no email)
Date: Mon Jan 02 2006 - 11:09:06 EST
Happy New Year All,
Lynn and I made it to Jacksonville, FL late early yesterday evening. I had
hoped to make the free dock in downtown Jacksonville but circumstances
worked out that we spent last night at Arlington Marina across the St Johns
River from Jacksonville.
So we made it from Baltimore where we were off-loaded on 1 Dec. to Florida
in one month. We didn't get in much sight seeing but we didn't kill
ourselves either by running everyday. We cruised 22 days and averaged 6.1
hrs per day. So not too bad for a normal 7.1 to 7.5 knot cruising speed.
After spending Christmas in Charleston SC, we made stops at B&B Seafood in
Green Pond (not much of a dock but fuel at $2.30/gal with credit card & good
shrimp), Hilton Head Harbor Marina, Sail Harbor on Wilmington Island, Golden
Isle Marina on St Simons and Lang's Marina in St Marys.
The only off shore run we made was from Wilmington Island to St Simons - 73
nm total and 9.7 hrs, our longest single day run but the weather was perfect
and saved at least a day. There were a number of shallow spots we
encountered on the ICW but never got stuck nor had back-off a sand bar - I
think we were very lucky a few times. I'll make another posting of my notes
where we encountered difficulties.
>From the List, we met Ron Rogers in Oriental, NC, who took us to the grocery
store and had picked-up some fuel filters for us. And in St Marys we checked
on "Allegria", Greg & Susan Han's Krogen Whaleback, for them.
The weather was since leaving the Chesapeake has been great. The few rainy
days were ones we spent in tied up. The mornings have been colder than we
like and we had to de-frost the windscreen a number of times. Also the low
sun angles this time of year made things difficult many mornings. But we had
the waterway mostly to ourselves and never had a problem finding a dock full
or over crowded. So there were a few advantages to traveling in December.
Our final run from St Marys to Jacksonville yesterday had a couple of
interesting "twists". First was fog yesterday morning that delayed our
departure until 10:00am. We did encounter one thick patch of fog on Nassau
Sound when we need to round the corner at Red 46A but the radar got us
through without difficulties. The next problem was running up the St Johns
River against the tide - slow going and timing wise it looked like we would
just get to the Jacksonville Landing town dock right at sunset. Then we
encountered a family of 5 drifting down river with an engine failure in a
14' ski boat. Called the Coast Guard who passed it on to SeaTow but by then
we had a bridle hooked up and were towing them slowly up stream to Arlington
Marina. By the time we got all that sorted out it was dark and we were
allowed to stay on the end of the T-dock for the night
It turned out to be a good thing because of the football games - yesterday &
today. The town dock is being used by folks attending the games and
hopefully it will be open to us "transients" late this afternoon.
We should be in Jacksonville until Thursday and then need to find a marina
to settle at for 6 to 8 weeks to catch-up on maintenance things and to make
a trip back to Missouri for a few weeks. So that the latest from "Legrace".
Bob & Lynn Williamson
"Legrace"
Aquanaut Drifter 1250
In Jacksonville, FL
PS: any suggestions on where to stay in northern Florida for a month or so
would be welcome!
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