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Nov 9 St Johns River - here we come. This river is 276 miles long
and is one of few in the U.S. that flows from south to north - from the
heart of central Florida into the Atlantic at Mayport. We had wanted to
explore the river earlier this summer, but was warned that it would be
too buggy, so we waited until now. This morning, we left our anchorage
at Fort George and got to Jacksonville around noon. We tied up
at Jacksonville Landing, a mall in the center of town, walked around and
hung out into the early evening to enjoy the free concert. Before the
sun set, we moved to anchor
near the Ortega River.
Nov 10 Fueled up at
Lambs Marina ($1.20/gal, free pumpout) on the Ortega River, the hub of
Jacksonville's marine industry. We took the advice of the
author of the St Johns Cruiisng guide and went into Black Creek. The first half
mile was lovely, and after that, it was pretty much the same - twist and
turns in a narrow creek. We saw an alligator and quite a few turtles.
Nothing to write home about. We went deeper into the creek, with the destination of
Middleburg in mind, a town that supposedly rivals with St Augustine as
the oldest city in the U.S. Maybe so, but we certainly did not feel safe
as we has passed by some dilapidated homes. The
movie "Deliverance" kept creeping into our mind. This is
definitely Old Florida with a redneck feel to it. We left abruptly
racing the setting sun to get out to the mouth of the river before
darkness set in. A whole six hours for not much of anything!
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Nov 11 Were we in for a treat today! We ventured into Six Mile Creek and tied up at the 1/4
mile long docks at the Outback Crab Shack (with a St Augustine address,
much to our surprise). While eagerly waiting for dinner at the shack, we
wandered around the docks and immersed ourselves with the wildlife residing
in the area. We saw the ubiquitous herons, white and blue, alligators, and
numerous turtles. Come dinner time, we savored raw oysters and delectable blue crabs ($16/doz),
served low country style with red potatoes and broccoli, corn and sausage.
The crabs were not as meaty as their Chesapeake cousins, but very sweet nonetheless.
We saw other diners shucking their own oysters, which we thought was
interesting.
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Nov 12 We were planning to go in to the town of Palatka, but had to run for
shelter as a squall came through about 10 minutes north of the town.
Wind gust of over 20 knots sent the river into a state of choppiness
with white caps, the first time we saw the St Johns so rough! Torrential
rain came down for about an hour. We were able to collect some rainwater
for dirty dishes. The next day, the temperatures dropped to 57
degrees. We went into town and tied up at the town dock ($25 if you
stay overnight, and you have to pay at the police station) and walked around
town. One of the oldest diners is located here. We checked out a neat
drug store on main street. Half the store is actually a diner offering
breakfast and lunch items, one quarter of the store is selling antiques,
the rest is a small pharmacy. After two hours of putting around, we
returned to the boat and continued our cruise to Murphy's Creek. We saw alligators, mostly babies, and again lots of
turtles sunning on fallen logs. Soaring high above were birds with
enormous wing span. We suspected
they must be eagles, since they are supposedly plentiful here.
Nov 14 Woke up to a nippy 47 degrees. Ran all the way to
Sanford via huge Lake Monroe, passing by wonderful wildlife refuge. This
is a bird lover’s paradise, no question about it. With a binocular in one
hand, a video camera in another, Eileen dashed from one end of the boat to the
other, capturing ibises, blue heron, anhinga, egrets, the elusive
limpkin, turkey vultures, wood storks, osprey, alligators and even cows.
We swore we sighted some bald eagles, but were never sure of it. Before
and after the town of Astor, the river narrows and is very much
populated with both banks lined with houses, marinas and boats. Fishing
is definitely THE thing to do here. We anchored in 5 foot of water
before the Sanford Marina in pretty open waters.
Nov 15 Deciding that there was
not much to see in Sanford, we left. On the way back, we again saw
lots of birds. We tried to go in to Glen Springs, a top
destination for the author and bald eagles sighting, but much to our
dismay, the
entrance was too shallow - about 3 feet of water. As we idled trying to
figure out whether we should tread into these shallow waters,
a pontoon boat slowly eased its way in. A fishing boat nearby
must thought that we grounded ourselves. What were we thinking? With
much reluctance, we moved on. Later during the day, we heard reports of nasty
weather kicking up, so we ran as far as we could to anchor at Turkey Island to shield
ourselves from the supposedly south wind of up to 20
knots. It was dead calm throughout the night.
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