Back to Florida

Winding our way up the Cumberland River and across St Catherine’s Sound, we anchored in the Amelia River at Fernandina Beach just across the Georgia -Florida border.  It had been a chilly cruise that day though not much rain.  We could not wait to cross into the Sunshine State as Florida is known.  Once in Florida, that much sought after sunshine and attendant warmth was finally our companion.  Or so we thought.  After all, this is winter.

We timed our arrival just right to enjoy the Christmas holiday festival on the island.  Both the locals and the visitors were in high spirits eating, drinking, shopping and reveling.  We were thrilled to be in the company of festively attired merchants and entertained by musical performances.

St Augustine

We continued our motoring down the ICW south on the St John’s River past Jacksonville and its beach areas until we anchored along the river just north of one of those 65’ fixed bridges that are prevalent in this area.  Fortunately, it was relatively calm and we enjoyed a comfortable rest that evening as we anticipated our arrival the next day in St Augustine, Florida on December 16^th.  The ICW along this route was lined on the west side with dense forest and on the east side with numerous stately homes. 

We usually haul our inflatable, motorized dinghy on the davits mounted on the back of our boat.  Since we had expected to use the dinghy while in St Augustine to get from our mooring to the marina dock, I towed it.  However, I underestimated the force of the current in the St Augustine inlet and our dinghy got caught on a channel marker.  The dinghy started drifting away as I came about to retrieve it.  This proved to be more difficult as the high waves coming in from the ocean prevented a quick retrieval.  The inflatable was drifting out to sea with the current when a small but powerful motorboat came to our aid and brought the errant dinghy back to us.  Reminded of the constant need to survey ahead and astern we pressed on to the mooring field at the city marina. 

This proved to be another test because as the next several days passed, the North swells continued to grow and make our mooring position very uncomfortable.  Our dinner party on Thursday evening was a huge success as we were able to rendezvous with Doug and Suzy as well as Rick and Sue, the latter couple just recently arrived from their Orange County, California home.  But ferrying the guests from Fantasea to the dock proved to be a wet ride, not to speak of the agility required to transfer from the inflatable to our boat without injury. 

By Friday morning, I had had enough of this nasty weather and motored into a very comfortable slip in the marina.  Doug was a wizard at installing a new battery charger and directing my work at replacing the fresh water pump which had been making a protesting din, signaling its useful life was at an end. 

Christmas in California

We boarded a flight back to California to celebrate Christmas with son Blake, his wife Kelly, and grandson Liam as well as our son, Tony.  Thinking we were going home to Southern California sunshine, we had been invited to join the kids in Running Springs, which at 6,000 feet, was to experience record snowfall over the next two days.  We were snowed in for two days.  The rest of our time in California we visited friends and were warmly greeted at our Dana West Yacht Club for the annual New Year’s Eve soiree. 

Return to Florida

January of the new year 2020 When it was time to return to Florida to continue our southward sojourn, we were hosted at the Lakeland, FL home of Brian and Barb who had sailed with us in the Abaco Islands three years earlier.  Our stay was brief but thoroughly enjoyable and we returned to St Augustine.  Before we resumed our southbound cruise we toured the St Augustine Distillery and were treated to a highly informative and entertaining tour of the facility and its history.  Its award winning bourbon placed first among 115 entries at a recent world competition and was remarkably smooth but we elected not to invest the $200 for a liter of that elixir.