Turf to Surf

Heading north from Jacksonville, we anchor west of Cumberland Island, Georgia….protected wild horses live on the island. Passing time at anchor…. I love the salt marshes in this area….lots of birds, dolphins. Exchanging pictures with Loopers on State of Grace as we share an anchorage. We anchor 4 more nights on the way to the Wacca Wache Marina, crossing Georgia into South Carolina.  Our intention was to fuel up and move on but bad weather had us reevaluate our plans. This is one of my favourite stops….the staff is exceptional.  We have decided to stay for awhile.  Richard plans to do his engine and generator oil changes and we have a few other projects to work on. Dinner with loopers Brian and Shari on Hula Loop and Grace and Bob from State of Grace. We will leave the boat here and drive home to host our daughter Lori’s baby shower on April 7th.  Looking forward to that…. ~~~~~~ We will be back onboard and ready to move on by April 12th.

  The St Johns river is approximately 310 miles long making it the longest in Florida.  Richard has been talking about this side trip since we started this journey….. The northern section is wider, more industrial and more populated. We exchanged pictures with Looper boat The Cure who was anchored downstream….last we saw them was in Michigan Fall of 22. Once passed Palatka the scenery changes, the river narrows and there are many side creeks to tuck into and anchor.  Lots of wildlife….turtles, manatees, Ospreys Gators and birds;  We think this is a great white heron, but not sure… We anchored out 4 nights, picking a different spot everyday.  It was beautiful, peaceful…sometimes with other boats and sometimes we had it all to ourselves.   On the fifth night we docked at a local restaurant, Corkey Bells, in Palatka. We sat on their patio with a great view of our boat and the river.  At 5pm it was a mad race of bass boat heading out to their fishing holes as if someone had fired a shot.  

  Feb 27th…..yes, I am behind in my blog 😅, sorry…. Beautiful weather for our first day of travel in 6 weeks….goodbye Green Turtle Cay, it was lovely 🥰  We anchor behind Mangrove Cay after a 9 hour run.  It’s in the middle of nowhere but weather is fine so no worries.  We actually had 2 sailboats join us for the night. Next day, we arrive in West End early to rest and get ready to cross to the mainland of Florida in the morning. We saw so many of these during our crossing, the first few you discount as maybe garbage/plastic but after a while you realize they are too numerous and consistent in shape and colour…hey google!? Turns out they are Portuguese Man of War, google pic…pretty neat creatures. Great crossing, we left at 7am and arrived just past 2 in the afternoon to get anchored in Lake worth.   Unfortunately, we were unable to clear customs on our app and were asked/ordered to present ourselves to the nearest customs and immigrations office.  Lucky for us, there was one just acr