Final Destination April 12-14 Green cove Springs, FL

After a wonderful night in Jacksonville we decided to take our time before leaving to catch the river current running in our favor. Peter found a great place, Village Bread, to have coffee and bagels for breakfast. The mall was essentially closed so we had the place to ourselves. By 8:30AM we left the dock, passed through a train bridge, under the I95 bridge, and turned south. It was a beautiful sunny day with lots of favorable wind so we took our time and sailed again. While there are shallow edges the river is so wide we didn't have to worry about navigating. Under sail we traveled about 24 miles comfortably, averaging 6-7 miles per hour.

Our final destination was Green Cove Springs. This is 25 miles south of Jacksonville on the St John's river and considered fresh water. It was a hurricane hole for the US Navy after the war. There are about 10 long 1/4 mile long concrete piers belonging to different companies. Basically it is a working area for some commercial boats and a storage area for sailing yachts. There are a lot of Canadian registered boats in the yard and also live aboards around.

Our friends helped us get some things together, pack up our car and part of their van. They left Tuesday morning in our car (packed to the roof). We spent the remainder of Tuesday packing the rest of our things into their van. When we finished it wasfull to the roof behind the front seats!! Wednesday morning we finished preparing the boat to haul out for the summer (similar to winter preparations). It's bittersweet knowing our friends up North are launching their boats for the summer. We decided to haul Kinvara out of the water. We have been on board since May and are ready to spend some time in our house. It was easier to haul the boat out since it is a 3 hour drive to Green Cove Springs from our house. We removed anything that was not wired or bolted to the boat. This is the first time we are storing it in the hot humid atmosphere. We spread lots of charcoal, dryer sheets, and bay leaves to avoid mold and bugs. This is on advice of others who have been here before. We'll see. We plan to move Kinvara to their working yard in September to get the bottom repainted and a few minor repairs. Launch time may be October.

We were suppose to be hauled by 12:30 Wed. but it got too windy so we sadly left Kinvara sitting at the pier, first in line for the travalift to do it's magic on Thursday. We will make a return trip next week to check on her. Wewill leave the thru hulls open, stuff them with screening, and cover the deck with shade cloth to cut down on UV rays.

Company Aboard April 9-111

Friday we awoke to a beautiful day. We cleaned the boat in preparation for on board company..our friends from our Florida neighborhood and previously in Franklin, MA. They arrived about mid afternoon with their van and our car (so we could get home after storing the boat). We settled in and chatted, wandered the dock area, then went to dinner that evening. Fred and Verena look after our house and pool while we are away so we were happy to welcome them on board.

Saturday we drove the two cars to Green Cove Springs to check out the 2 places we could store our boat. Fred & Verena happily toured St Augustine. We looked at Green Cove Springs Marina and Reynolds Marina. The first one is not really a marina but a do it yourself boat yard with some floating slips and a long dock. the second one is a marina with dry storage next door. After making our decision we headed back to St Augustine.

Sunday we were up at 6AM and preparing to leave by 7. There was a trawler gam planned so we had to vacate the dock. After fueling and pumping out Kinvara was underway by 7:30AM with our friends on board. We motored North along the ICW through some pretty areas. Our friends were amazed at the houses along the water..especially going through the Palm Coast Area. We only saw 1 group of dolphins but lots of small boats out for the day. It was an easy trip on the ICW until we got to the junction of the St John's River. There is some shoaling so we had to pick our way carefully. Once into the river we could put our sails up and turn off the engine. Jane took the helm and we had a wonderful sail for about an hour and a half. It was so nice not having to worry about depth for a change.

We arrived in Jacksonville by mid afternoon after travelling about 60 miles. It was an exciting place to be. Jacksonville Landing is a mall area with shops and restaurants. They provide a long waterfront dock which you can tie up to free for 72 hours. There are no services provided....not a problem for our boat. the only drawback is, if crowded, you raft up to five boats deep. Luckily we were only 1 of 2 overnight boats on Sunday night! It seems like lots of boats tie up to do dinner and on weekends it is probably a big party spot!! Fred & Verena took us out to dinner. The city was pretty at night with lights on the buildings and along the bridges. It was surprisingly quiet overnight! When we start on the boat again we will plan to stay there for a few days and have a look around the city.

St Augustine April 8th.

We arrived in St. Augustine yesterday after a 53 mile trip up the ICW. We waited to leave Daytona until 10am so we would arrive at the Matanzas Inlet where we heard there was shoaling on the ICW. We paced ourselves getting there and we heard of at least two boats going aground as we approached. We arrived close to high tide and had no trouble getting through. After passing that area we had little trouble on the remaining 15 miles. We are now tied up at one of our favorite marinas on the east coast in old St augustine. We will be here until Sunday and then will set off on the last leg of our journey to Green Cove Springs where we will keep the boat for the summer.

St. Augustine is the home of Ponce De Leon's fountain of youth which he discovered in 1513. Tomorrow when our friends, Fred and Verena, arrive we may go over there to partake in some of the youth restoring waters from the fountain!!!!!!!!

For all our golfing friends we are just a short distance from the World Golf Village and also from the TPC Sawgrass. Both are well worth a visit. Proud to say that Peter has played both courses at Sawgrass and also the 18 hole putting course at the Golf Village.

As you can see Pretzel gets the royal treatment when we go ashore. The fall she took on leaving the Bahamas has not fully healed yet and she limps so we carry her most of the time. She draws a lot of attention in her back pack.

ICW...slow and easy

Saturday morning we left West palm beach and started to motor North along the Intracoastel Waterway. We remember coming down how stressful it was following the day marks, worrying about running aground, and the shallow depths. After being in the Bahamas sailing around coral heads, reefs, and shallow water the ICW is a piece of cake. At the very least there is Tow Boat US everywhere and services along the way. We were delighted to find about 10K of wind out of the east so full sails went up along with the motor. We had lots of daylight and great speed so we sailed 60 statue miles to Vero Beach. We left West Palm at 10AM (had to wait for higher tide) and arrived in Vero beach at 6:30PM.
Sunday morning (Easter day) we left Vero Beach fuel dock at 7:30 and again had full sails up with motoring. We were able to go 8-9miles per hour most of the time. At one point in our trip three large dolphins surfaced beside the boat and rode along with us for about 5 minutes. Peter put us in auto and we both watched them over the side. They would swim, surface, angle towards us, sometimes go deeper, only to return again. It was such a thrill to see these beautiful creatures play in our waves. We heard on the VHF an announcement from the Coast Guard about enacting the security zone for the shuttle Discovery launch. It was planned for Monday morning at 6:20AM. So we decided to push ourselves again for another 60 mile day and arrived in Titisville by 4:30PM. We had a lovely Easter dinner of shrimp & wine for appetizers, steak on the grill, mashed potato, fresh steamed broccoli, and cheesecake topped with raspberries for dessert. All out of our freezer!!! One of the best improvements we made on the boat last summer.
We called our friends, Fred & Verena, to see if they wanted to meet us at the boat for the launch. They drove 1.5 hours to arrive here at 6AM so Peter collected them in the dingy and we had a front row seat from our anchorage to watch the shuttle launch. We could see the ground ignition and entire lift off clearly in the dark since we were only 4 miles away from the launch pad. What a rush. You could hear people shouting and cheering in the distance. We were surrounded in our anchorage by Canadian boats so I'm sure they were awakened by the noise. The sound of the shuttle was like a jet engine next to you for about 15 seconds! We finished the morning off with coffee and breakfast and our friends actually stayed the day relaxing with us. We moved to the Titisville marina for tonight so we could do laundry & refresh water, etc. Tomorrow we start a 100 mile trip further north to St Augustine. It should take 2 days.

Back in the USA !!!!!!

It's been a long week since our last blog entry. jane returned to Nassau on Monday afternoon. It was only a 55 minute flight from Orlando but it took just as long to go through immigration. Something about spring break and Easter week!!

Our weather router, Chris Parker, predicted 5 beautiful days to travel so Kinvara left the Nassau dock by 7:15AM Wed. morning and headed along the Northwest channel under full sail and power. We wanted to do half of our trip back to the US so speed was essential. Our route was over deep water. In fact when we left Nassau we registered about 50' under our keel then the depth started flashing. That means we dropped off below 999'. It is an abyss in this channel!!

We saw flying fish and many more birds than our trip south. We also thought we saw a few small whales....very black fins. Perhaps dolphins but they tend to be gray. Once we had travelled 60 nautical miles over the abyss we came onto the banks again with about 15-20' of water. Another 30 nautical miles brought us to Mackey Shoal where we tucked in behind it for the night with 4 other boats. It had been a 13 hour day under sunny skies and calm seas. Perfect!!! There was the most glorious sunset with no cloud or land obstruction so we were able to see the "green flash" of the sun. Once dark the moon appeared as a large orange ball on the eastern horizon. It was a nice way to spend our last night in Bahamian waters.
Thursday morning we were up at 5.30AM for coffee and breakfast in order to get an early start. By 6.15 we were underway again, in the dark, looking forward to the sunrise. Unfortunatly as we were getting under way pretzel somehow hurt her right front leg. We noticed she did not put any weight on it so we had to try to keep her quiet. She was hurting but we could do nothing before getting back to the US. We continued on accross the banks for another 30 miles past Bimini and into deep water again. We were expecting winds from the NE changing to the E at 10-15K moderating in the afternoon with 2-3ft seas in the gulf stream. We finally hit the Gulf Stream about noon time and headed NW to Lake Worth inlet about 70 nautical miles away. In this direction we planned on catching the Gulf Stream to give us a few knots of extra speed. Within a few hours the conditions in the Stream changed drasticly. The winds picked up to 15-20K and the seas built to 6ft. Our speed built from 9K to 10K to 11K and finally to 12K for a period of time. Since we were traveling NW it ment being in the gulf stream longer but it also gave us a better angle to the waves and so we decided to stick with the stream to get us to our destination as quickly as possible. The boat handled the stress better than the crew but at the end of the day we arrived safe and sound in West Palm Beach and dropped anchor at 7:15PM.

Friday morning we moved into the Rivera Beach Municipal Marina to take care of pretzel. We took her to a vet where they took e-rays etc and determined that nothing was broken but her arthritis was acting up and she twisted her leg badly but she would heal with a little help from some pain killers. She needed lots of TLC when we got back to the boat but we were glad things did not end up worse than they did. To sooth our souls we carried Pretzel up the dock to the Tiki Bar and enjoyed a strong rum punch while waiting for our take out dinner.