St. Augustine to Jacksonville Beach

Bear at the actual Fountain of Youth

After spending three days touring St. Augustine with the gusto of a young family at Disneyland, we were tired and ready to leave.  The historic district of that city was on our bucket list.  We had a three day pass on the guided tour train and by the end of the visit, we knew the spiel.  The heat took it's toll and the cruise to Jacksonville Beach yesterday gave us a chance to rest. 

The fort sea

Before departing St. Augustine, a little voice told me to check the cooling system of the engine.  Since Why Knot communicates with us via many methods, not the least of which is engine noises, we know to listen and take action.  We discovered a partially failed sea water impeller and it would not have been long for it to completely fail.  It is always better to find these things at the dock.  I also cleaned many impeller parts out of the heat exchanger, so we were good to go.

A shot astern just south of Jacksonville Beach

We left St. Augustine at 0900 by passing the Bridge of Lions bascule.  The view on the other side of that bridge was impressive.  The Atlantic inlet to the right and the fort to the left.  The trip up the ditch presented a different type of scenery than that of the last two months.  Most of the ditch was in an ancient river bed, thus lots of curves through low marsh like areas.  Palm trees are giving way to pines and oaks along that route and there are many parks and wildlife reserves that hold back the developments.  Due to the relatively wide tidal range, we had following currents part of the way and opposing currents the rest.  Since there were two high and two low tides yesterday, we saw a doozie outgoing as we approached Beach Marine for the nights. 

About four miles from the marina, we passed a small fishing boat with motor up and several small children sitting in the sun watching dad paddle the boat with one paddle.  They waived at us and he kept digging, but going nowhere,  We turned around and offered to tow them at least to Beach marine. which we did.  The tow brought a cheerier look to the crew of that boat.  Turns out that they were going to the launch ramp right at the marina.  We were able to land them at the ramp and proceed to our slip without incident.

We docked next to a boat just purchased by an elderly couple (like us) with their grandson along for the experience.  They were the boat about an hour ahead of us the entire trip yesterday.  They told us that they plan to take the boat to a lake in the Carolinas to support their yacht club youth sailing program and that the grandson was a graduate of that program.  He said they had over 100 students this summer.  Good to hear about such programs since it appears old fogeys are the only folks out here. 

The highlight of the day was a visit by a good friend and my former company commander from Vietnam, the Republic of.  It has been many years since our last visit.  Unlike our last visit during which we discussed in detail our time in the jungles, we discussed current politics.  We are of like mind.  We will visit again before leaving this place. 

Bear has an appointment on Tuesday with a back clinic.  We have scheduled a week here which we hope will be enough time to solve the problem.  Resolution of the issue will certainly improve the cruise for both of us.  Fingers crossed here.