Monday April 11: St. Johns River

Steve found this little guy quite cute - siting outside the restaurant near the marina and had to have a picture. Definitely unique!

Breakfast was great - love that place! - and we were off as the current was going our way.

The best part of traveling through Daytona, for me, is the coolest bridge. There's only one but it's very well done.

So we were off Saturday headed for Marineland. It was only 40 miles (about 5 1/2 hours ) and with a fairly early start we would be able to arrive in the early afternoon.

Another very pleasant day to travel (still north winds so cool out of the sun). And for a Saturday, it was surprisingly empty of boat traffic.

After getting in and settled, it was off to the beach. Great piles of coquina rocks (made from shells) strewn around on the beach.

Very unusual for a Florida beach.

Steve walked quite a ways down the beach while I found a nice flat rock and waited.


There was a ridge of shells left by the receding tide. Maybe this is how the coquina rocks begin their formation?

For more info on these rock formations, click here.



An amazing sunset Saturday night!

And then an early morning. This marina is located at the original Marineland and we decided to finally check it out.

Of course the first thing Steve was drawn to was the really well done salt water aquarium. These fish are so colorful! Most are the same fish we see on the reefs in the Keys or occasionally around Banana Bay.

The main attraction here is the dolphins and the sea turtles. Left is a mother and its baby. Very cute!


There was even a place to take a picture with Flippy :-)






The history of this park (which first opened in 1938 with an admission charge of $1) is pretty interesting as it was the first it it's kind.

The movie "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (who hasn't seen THAT classic!) was filmed here.

For more info on Marineland history, click here.

Later in the day we had an opportunity to take a tour of the Matanzas inlet in a vegetable oil powered jet boat that runs tours out of the marina. This inlet produces some crazy strong currents and is quite dangerous with the numerous shifting sand bars in the entrance.

Definitely not for large boats! A plus was the great view of Fort Matanzas. It's really a just watchtower though but had enough firepower to keep the unwanted from reaching the next large northern city of St. Augustine. This site is maintained by the National Park Service. Their website has all of the history of the fort you will ever want to know! Click here to see it!

So much for the fun of Marineland! And as always there was a bike ride through the former campground that still has the bike friendly trails. Short as it was getting on time for dinner.

We quietly left this morning before sunrise in order to catch the currents going north. Steve tried to convince me the sun was already up - that it was just cloudy and I couldn't see it.

As soon as I turned on the GPS and noted the "nighttime" colors I knew I had been had :-)

My suspicions were confirmed when I actually SAW the sunrise after we were on our way for 15 minutes!

Another beautiful day to travel - we have been so fortunate weather-wise in the two weeks since we left Marathon.

This area of Florida is a preserve so lots of open grass and flats area and no sign of development for about 40 miles of waterway. Very much like the grassy areas of Georgia.

Very cool house south of St. Augustine. Loved the turrets .....

And the shipyard on the St. Johns River. Not sure if this is a military ship but suspect it is. It was really built to take any kind of seas as it didn't look like it had any open decks of any kind.

Finally arrived at the dock at a park near where Sister's Creek and the St. Johns river intersect. The only boat here ..... for about 10 minutes and then 3 sailboats and a catamaran all pulled in - one after the other.

The wind blowing hard one direction and the current coming just as hard from the other made for some interesting docking. Took me 4 tries to come into the small inlet and turn into the wind and make it to the dock.

But we're in for the night and tied safely to the dock in this wind that is still howling!