Jekyll Island Hotel as seen from the water

Tuesday 12-30-08
At 07:30 we were underway again backing out of our slip as neighbor Werner, stood by in case we needed a hand with lines. Later today we will get a look at the U-boat place (Kings Bay) where he lost his mast, which still hasn’t been replaced on his boat. The weather was just perfect but the sun rising in the east created a blinding glare that resulted in temporary blindness whenever we would have to look at the chart plotter. A Catalina sail boat named Martini, left the marina about 15 minutes ahead of us and the owner was a local from Brunswick and was taking some friends for a little cruise down the ICW to Fernandina Beach. Fernandina is the first Florida town you find along the ICW heading south. It seems to be very industrialized with paper mills and some other heavy industry visible from the water. The town waterfront has been spiffed up and there is a municipal marina which makes it a popular local boater destination. I had met Martini’s owner and knew he had a lot of local navigation knowledge so we just followed him into and through the narrow and shallow creek that has to be navigated behind Jekyll Island. Even though we were passing at near high tide, there were some spots where we had only about 10 feet of water – that is not much when you have a tidal range of 8 feet.

Martini leading the way

In spite of the shallow water it was a wonderful ride along the length of Jekyll and into Cumberland Sound, the body of water that separates Jekyll from Cumberland Island. The ICW route took us nearly into the ocean before we turned and followed the markers behind Cumberland Island. Cumberland is accessible only by boat and is a park and wildlife sanctuary.

Many boaters have told us they have anchored behind Cumberland for days and went ashore by dinghy to walk the beaches and explore. Maybe we will have a look at it when we are Northbound in the spring.

Sailboat caught in outgoing tide.

The perfect weather combined with our desire to get on down to warmer weather entice us to push on farther than we planned so we cruised on past the St. Johns River and onto to Jacksonville Beach. We had decided earlier that we would take a slip in a marina for the night and made a reservation at Palm Cove Marina which turned out to be just OK – the photos and description in their ad contained in the cruising guide must have been based upon the place when it was brand new, three owners and two bankruptcies ago. We had some trouble getting into the basin the marina is in due to the low tide at our arrival – we actually had to plow through bottom mud with the keel dragging and the prop dinging on shells and stones. In fairness, the tide was unusually low, but the marina people should have had some info to share with incoming transients. If we make a stop in that area in the spring, it will be at Beach Marine, right across the waterway from Palm Cove.
The disappointment with the marina, coupled with tiredness from pushing a bit too much (72 miles and 9.6 hours), left us both kind of out-of-sorts, and dinner was a shared can of soup and some toast. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and there may not even be anyone near enough to hear the noise makers we bought in Brunswick when we were provisioning. Anyway, we are in Florida.