With our cruising preparations as complete as they can be, we set off again for our third season of "Looping". We leave behind many friends and special memories from our time in Jacksonville and as much as we regret leaving, the attraction to cruise again pulls us like the outgoing tide.
Our departure comes after a strong weather front has passed. 30+mph winds and 11 ft seas offshore bring a bright, clear day, but as the winds have not completely subsided, we find our 25 mile course east out the St Johns River through downtown and out to the Atlantic and the Intracoastal Waterway full of stiff headwinds and whitecaps.
Turning north on the protected Intracoastal, everything calms down immediately and we soon come upon our first nights stop, Sisters Creek, a free city of Jacksonville park/dock. We spend a quiet night getting back in to the rhythm of being "out", with open hatches and fresh breezes filling the cabins.
The next morning we hope to make good time and find smooth crossings of the bays/sounds of Fernandina and the St Mary's River to Cumberland Island where we will anchor out in the marshlands, but an unexpected change of plans happens when the starboard motor dies during warmup. After an hour of anxious troubleshooting we are able to isolate the problem to that pesky fuel system clogging problem that plagued us last year. The temporary fix of blowing the jelly globs that get stuck in the fuel tank intake pipes gets us running again, but it's a temporary solution because they're still in the tank somewhere and will find their way to the intake again. Hopefully this will happen in a place where we can take the time to disassemble the piping and get them out.
Our last pass through the Ortega River Bascule bridge for awhile.................
Our trip back to the Intracoastwal Waterway through downtown Jacksonville and it's busy port.
A watchguard pelican?
Tied up at Sisters Creek