Wednesday October 29: Sister's Creek - Mouth of the St. John's River

Yesterday was spent completing final preparations for finally getting under way. Bikes on - check. Trash off - check. Water tanks full - check.

It was up an out this morning as the railroad bridge in downtown Jacksonville is operating on a reduced opening schedule: 9-10am, 12-1pm and 8-10 pm.

It was no problem getting there just after 9 o'clock as the bridge was a short 45 minutes away.

We pulled out from under cover on schedule at 8:25 to another nice day. I continue to wonder when the not so good weather is coming!

Downtown Jacksonville is visible in the haze as we left Lamb's Yacht Center (does that mean we're a yacht just because they let us stay there??).


The first bridge was the Ortega River Bridge. It's 'on demand' which means we can just call and the bridge will open for us - as opposed to the bridges that are restricted and have only specific times during which you may pass.

The current was carrying us down the river almost all of the 25 miles to the entrance to Sister's Creek where we will pick up the Intercoastal Waterway to head south.

One of the reasons we left the boat in Jacksonville was the distance it lies from the Atlantic. With a 25 miles distance up the St. John's River, the thought was that even if a hurricane hit that part of Florida, it wouldn't be so bad by the time it made it 25 miles inland to Jacksonville.

Fortunately, no hurricanes for Florida this year!

In and tied up by noon!

We were able to finally drop the dinghy (there was no room behind the boat when we were in the covered slip) to add air.

A nice sunset ... all is right again :-)