Monday report.

A great weekend was had by the Barco and crew. First up, the Sadler Marine people worked hard to get the maintenance finished by close of business Friday. Only thing not working was our air conditioner system in the aft end... Anyway, I hung in the straps waiting for launch, which happened at five o'clock. I backed the Barco out to the river, turned right and headed for the bridge. The Ortega bridge was opened at my request (and the chagrin of the commuting cars stuck on the North side!) almost instantly, and I crept out to the East. Barco was tied up in her slip 30 minutes later and I head over to the club for a couple beers and dinner.

Hangin' in the straps waiting to launch.

Just outside the Ortega River, ready to turn South.

Downtown J-Ville.

Underway for Mandarin Point.

Anchored.

Skyping Australia.

Saturday, we rose with the chickens and enjoyed a chilly morning with coffee. She Who Will Be Obeyed had a haircut appointment at ten, so I took the time to ride my bike to Sadler Point Marina to retrieve my pick 'em up truck. At eleven, the Spousal Unit was home and we went clothes shopping. I endured about an hour of that and then we decided lunch would be a good thing, so we went to a hipster restaurant for burritos and Fuller's E.S.B. Mmmm, good. Especially the Fullers Beer!

It being a really nice afternoon, I presented the case that we should cruise the Barco for a couple hours and enjoy the warm sunshine. We dropped the shopping debris at the house and arrived at the boat by three o'clock. Underway in minutes, we head Southward to wherever...

Arriving at Mandarin Point, I busied about to drop the hook so we could shut down and enjoy some wine, brie and crackers in the afternoon sun. We had so much fun we thought we would go ahead and spend the night. The prospect of clear skies, starlight and the solitude of our anchorage were strong reasons for doing just that.

Skyped our friends in Coolongolook, Oz. Even talked with J.D. at Great Lakes FM and had her play "Ventura Highway" for the locals. (They had been playing a few John Denver cuts, so I thought America would fit in.) It was fun to hear the song and commentary over the internet stream.

Off to bed early after a cribbage tournament, I naturally won. The wind cranked up form the West somewhere around two am. I checked everything over, we were tightly secured to our anchor and the anchor was buried deep in the St Johns River mud. No worries...

We were finally up at seven-thirty the next morning, it was cold but ok. I made up coffee and blueberry waffles, served with a side of pre-cooked long life bacon. Life was good on the Barco!

Underway at nine-fifteen and we were secure in our home berth about forty minutes later. This meant we were back at the house by ten o'clock where we busied ourselves with preparing a slow cooked boston butt in the Weber Kettle.

Great weekend! Looking forward to next weekend when we can do it all again.

Have a nice week out there!

Secret message.