Finally leaving Florida

We left Marathon early on the morning of March 19, 2014, after six weeks.  As much as I loved Marathon and the warm weather, I was ready to go.  I needed a change of scenery.  We anchored the first two nights and then got a slip in Ft. Lauderdale at Las Olas Marina.  I liked Ft. Lauderdale but don't think I would go out of my way to stay there again.  At least not at Las Olas.  I would try a different marina next time.  Don't get me wrong, the marina was nice, I just didn't like the downtown area of Ft. Lauderdale at that location.  The beach was beautiful but we're not beachy people.  We spent four days in Ft. Lauderdale before moving on.

Dolphin swimming in our bow wake

We anchored three of the next four nights and got a mooring ball one night.  We also experienced our first "grounding" on March 26th.  We were coming out of Manatee Pocket and didn't pay attention to the red nuns at the entrance.  They were placed fairly close together and were warning us not to go between them.  Well.... we went right between them.  Immediately, the boat came to a halt and we knew we had run aground.  It was easy to back right off, though.  The bottom in that area is all soft mud or sand.  All the anchorages were great and we would stay there again.  They were Manatee Pocket, off St. Lucie Inlet; Causeway Island at Ft. Pierce; and Matanzas Inlet.  We picked up a mooring ball in Titusville.  We're trying to do the return trip as cheaply as possible.  The trip south was "no holds barred", but the trip north is going to have to be done "on the cheap".

Sunset at Manatee Pocket

After four days of no dock water and/or electricity, we decided to go to Palm Cove Marina, which is close to John's sister's in Atlantic Beach, and stayed two nights.  Gay and her son, Lawson, brought us one of her cars to use while we were there and we greatly appreciated it.  We were able to re-provision at Wally World without renting a car.  Life is good!

We fueled up at Palm Cove on Monday morning (3/31/14) before heading to the St. John's River.  We decided to take a 200 mile detour and do the St. John's because we had heard so much about it.  The first night was spent at Jacksonville Landing, which is a free dock with water.  Can't beat that.
 

Jacksonville Landing free dock

Gay met us for lunch before we headed up river (or down river).  The St. John's River is only one of two rivers in the world that flow south to north.  The other is the Nile.  How about that for a piece of trivia?  This river is quite beautiful.  The water is the color of iced tea - brown, but clear - just like iced tea.  Back home the water is also brown, but it's a murky brown.  The brown water of the St. John's is caused from all the tannins coming from the cypress trees and it is very clean.  It's also the bass capital of the world.  You never saw so many fish camps and bass boats.

This picture doesn't do the water justice.  It's actually very pretty.
 

St. John's River

We anchored the first night on the Black River off the St. John's and that night I had one of the most unusual experiences of my life.  In 62 years, I have never, not ever, seen stars reflected off the water.  The Black River is so black and it is so still with no outside light, that the constellation Orion was as clear on the water as it was in the sky.  The river is also so deep that the constellation appeared to be at the bottom of the river.  It was like looking at the sky but you were actually looking down.  When I looked down the stars naturally appeared to be very far away, even though the reflection was quite close.  I know it was some sort of optical illusion, but the boat seemed to be floating 20 feet off the water.  I can't explain it very well, but it was a really cool feeling.  John wanted to know if the drug cartel had dropped off some "good stuff" while he was asleep.  LOL!  I told him yes, and I wasn't sharing.

After cruising by ourselves for four days, we met Gay and Lawson at a restaurant on the water.  They spent the night with us on Friday and Gay left on Saturday morning.  Lawson spent two days with us on the boat.  I think the highlight of his time, though, was shooting the .22 pistol that we have on board.  We had a sort of competition and he won. I was glad that he won and not John.  John and I tied. 

Captain Lawson

We dropped Lawson off back at Jacksonville Landing where his mom picked him up on Sunday.  The next morning we were headed for Georgia.