Florida, Green Cove Springs – Moving down the St.John’s river

We told you we were planning to leave Ortega Landing Marina and head south, down the St. Johns River, to Green Cove Springs.

But, as usual, we had a few things to do first.

We finally got the windlass mounted back onto the boat and all that newly galvanized chain and anchor back in place.  We gave the engine a check over and the oil changed.

We will need a dingy to get to shore from the mooring balls at Green Cove Springs, so more patches to try to keep the dingy afloat.

And we dropped the foresail in preparation to being lifted out.  Well at least we tried to drop it.  The furler jammed ‘again’ on an allen key that had worked itself loose.   So the sail was not going to come down with out some one going up there and freeing it.   I nominated the smallest of the humans for the job.  I sent her back up with a red locktite that needs heat to free the allen keys in the future.  Not the best angle to be working at, but she swears that next time 5200 is coming out!

While I had her in the Bosom’s chair she might as well replace that embarrassing ensign.  Happy now Uncle Steve?

All our local neighbors helped the humans collect the rest of the food and materials they were going to need for the rest of the boat jobs to come.  Unfortunately Green Cove Springs has no shops within cycling distance.

Finally we had run out of excuses for delaying our departure and said goodbye to our lovely neighbors at Ortega Landing Marina.

As we passed though the lifting bridge that separates Ortega River from the St.Johns the Marina passed into the distance and the Bridge Operator wished us a happy journey.

St. Johns is a large easily navigable river with few hazards in the section we were traveling besides one bridge we needed to get under.

If you have read our blog before you will be aware that bridges make my human’s nervous.  This is in part because they keep forgetting to measure the true height of our mast.  They think it is 60 feet.  But they added stuff on top.  It was already fitted with a lightening rod and VHF areal.  They had to buy a relatively large windex (wind direction indicator) to get over all that.

They were ‘pretty sure’ they were still under 65 feet.  The bridge we were heading for was listed on charts to be 65 feet. Unfortunately they needed a high tide to get over the sand bank at the mouth of Ortega River and the St.Johns River was ‘running high’ right now.

Now, if you go through the centre of the bridge, this is supposedly the highest point.  Although watch out for the hanging navigation light.  A friend told me a story of a yacht that would have made it under a bridge but he had insisted in travelling ‘dead centre’ under the bridge and clipped the hanging navigation light taking all his mast top antenna and windex off.  OUCH!

We did not want to follow suit.

There is supposed to be a tide indicator on the base of the bridge to tell boat owners what the clearance is, but you have to get real close to read it.  With a rising tide pushing us along….not a good chance of turning round in time….and what is the true height of our mast anyway??

 

The rest of the trip down river was uneventful.  I even forgave them for their stupidity.

We spotted the mooring balls between the huge abandon naval docks just before dusk.

They were a little nervous about the depth, as all the outer mooring balls were taken and the charts listed the depth getting shallow quickly, but one of the other moored boats assured them that they would have enough depth quite close in.

 

All tied up safely we settled in to a lovely evening with a great breeze running up the river.  What a nice change from being cramped into a Marina.  Bald eagles roused on the remains of the docks.

After a great nights sleep we were all excited to go exploring.  The humans were too lazy to drop the dingy and put the engine on, so we went ashore on the kayaks.

Spirit of Argo looked perfectly happy to be moored up between the old Naval docks.

Our first stop was to check in at the Marin Office.

They supply cruisers with free WiFi, coffee and a place to ‘hang out’.  The marina manager Crystal filled us in on all the discounts they could get on supplies as they were a ‘do it yourself’ boat yard.  With next day delivery.

Across from the office is the amenities building.  We had heard ‘horror stories’ about the showers here.

Thankfully they have added a new extension on the back with additional toilets, showers and laundry facilities.  These are a bit more modern than the ‘dated’ facilities at the front, but both were clean and tidy.

Simple, but tidy is the best description I can give the place.  It is a ‘do it yourself’ place so you can not expect anything fancy.

Everything appears well maintained and organized.  The setting of the Marina is an industrial area utilizing the old Naval docks.

North down the shore is docking and storage yards followed by yacht service yard and another Marina.  South down the shore is a tow boat yard.

 

Although this short stretch of river side is industrial it is backed by woods, fields and rivers.  Great places for me to explore and run about in.

Cruisers use the surrounding country side and the trails through the local park to escape from ‘boat work’.  The wildlife in these areas have got used to ramblers and even come out to see if we have brought them a treat to eat.

 

 

Cutting back to the riverside through the yard we spotted another one of those ‘really bad’ names people give their boats.  Check out the page we have added of our collection so far.

We chatted with other cruisers working on their boats and got a generally good feeling about the place.  I am sure as the end of hurricane season approaches, and temperatures begin to drop, things will become much more manic, but for now the place is easy-going.

While the temperature is still ‘hot’ we will stay out on the river to complete repairs, because here we can enjoy the cooling breeze.  When the temperature starts to drop, we will lift the boat out and get to completing work on the bottom.