Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Memorial Day 2013 Report



Spanish Tallship.





Barco at slip 32 in St Augustine Municipal Marina

Perfect weekend in Northeast Florida... Temps were low eighties and the humidity was almost nonexistent!

I got underway about an hour and a half late, not bad for me since I get easily distracted. In this case I got 'joined' to a group on Facebook called HSL-84 Thunderbolts. I spent an hour eyeballing the photos and remembering my two years (I wasn't very nice back then) at that particular squadron and that is why I was late. I unjoined myself before anyone notices I was there!

Anyway, I rushed over and loaded the last bags and untied the boat from the dock. I headed North on the river to downtown and enjoyed a very uneventful ride in the bright sunshine. Right up until I was a hundred yards from the Railroad bridge, which closed in front of me.



Disappointment. Curse-words uttered to the bridge were not pretty but I was frustrated at the delay.

It was 20 minutes of doing circles in the river until the train had finally cleared which allowed me on my way, pushing the tide at slow speeds.

There is a lot of history with that bridge, the first railway bridge at that site (First bridge crossing the St Johns River!) was built by Henry Flagler's company to bring trains and passengers to St Augustine, which coincidently is my goal, too! This particular span was put in place in 1925 and looks it, believe me.

I passed a sailboat and then was pretty much alone on the River as I headed towards the ocean. The tide changed in my favor about a half hour later, and I now had the pleasure of trucking along at a blistering ten knot pace.

The high speed fun was snuffed out when I got to the Intracoastal Waterway, which has an opposite tide course and I slowed back to seven knots.

About half way down the ICW we got the following tide and sped back to ten knots, but that lasted about an hour. As I approached the St Augustine airport, we were beating back into the tidal current and slowed way down.

The Spousal Unit called me from the A1A Alehouse, wondering when I was going to finally arrive? I reported that it would be another hour or so, and that I was enjoying a very slow pace on the last leg to the Bridge of Lions.

I arrived at about six p.m. and was soon tied to the dock. We commenced the weekend with some Alaskan Salmon and a Simi Chardonnay. While enjoying our evening we were lucky to watch the entire launch and staging to orbit of a NASA satellite in the clear blue evening sky. It was the finest way to wrap up a day on Florida's First Coast.

We were up early on Saturday and enjoyed a fine brekky in the morning sun. As afternoon made it's way to our locality we decided to take the tourist hike about the old town. We were on George Street and ducked into a bar to avoid the Luddite Elitist Marching Mob as they protested Capitalism and its ability to feed the masses cheaply. Seems that Monsanto is evil and should be stopped at any cost, despite the fact there are hungry humans in third world nations who would like a chance to be fed by Monsanto. All this is amusing to me as I see well fed, showered and clean wealthy students walk by as they try to make the rest of us change our bad ways.
Youth is wasted on young people...

So I ducked into a bar and had a Belgian Beer.

Afterwards, we left and searched out some more tourist traps for small gew-gaws to place into our plastic bag as we waited for five o'clock and the Tradewind Bar's famous happy hour show, your host Mark Hart.

And we did.

Got back around eight p.m. and called it an evening an hour later.


Sunday morning had a bit of a gravity storm waiting for me, coffee and brekkies happened a bit after eight. We had a very lazy day watching the Pirate ship take tourists in and out, with a few sword fights on the adjacent dock in between missions. It was relaxing and invigorating to just sit in the shade and watch a busy marina do its holiday routine. We never left the Barco excepting to dump a couple small bags of trash.

A sober Crew hit beddy-byes at nineish to rest up for the trip home.

Up and at-em happened at zero six hundred, I cruised down the dock to use the marina showers while the Spousal Unit used our facilities. The tide was changing and we needed to get away rapidly to take advantage of the favorable currents. The result of which was that we made it home in about seven hours.

And we did get to see some Manatees and dolphins!

Later On: But of course, the Railroad Bridge closed as we were approaching downtown. No curses this time, we had been lucky to have the tides with us and it was a most beautiful day. We'll take the good deals and minimize the small inconveniences that are meaningless in the long run, right?

Now, the dreaded photos...


Bridge of Lions and look: a Spanish Tall Ship is docked at Municipal Marina!

Intracoastal near St Augustine

Low Tide

I have seen 'Monkey's Uncle' in the ICW every year since 2000. 

Fishin' in da ditch.

Lonely stretch of ICW

ICW at Ponte Vedra and Palm Valley

More of that fishin'.

Not good head work to tow your dinghy, especially when it gets bumpy at times.

Heading North while I go South...

Nice lookin' cruising boat

This has been there for years. Looks like a candidate for  salvage.

Thanks for the wake...



Heading North, too.

Jet skiers like to jump the wakes.



An Uninhibited Island



St John's Bluff

Cool name for a cargo vessel.

El Yunque

I think the Owner of the NFL Jaguars uses this boat.

Yep. Dames Point Bridge.



Nice homes on St Johns River.


I spoke to this tug on VHF. Monitor needed me out of the way while they anchored a barge.

Listen to tugs on VHF channel 10.


Where the Toyotas come to America.

Downtown Jax bridges.














Jax Fire and Rescue boat.
Tradewinds to the left and Legion at the big intersection by Bridge of Lions.


Monument in front of Legion Hall




Looks Legit...












Ronny's picture guards the men's.



Nice lady who got to watch the show and stay unattached.

Woo Girls!

Our Host, Mark Hart. "That's right folks, this is the drinking part of the song..."

Tony and crew from Tampa.
Waiting for something...

View out our starboard side

80 foot Huckins
Crew of Black Raven. They look like they have fun!
"Arrgh, now be givin' me your ticket..."


For Bruce and Buck; Eyeball Liberty





Heading North at 0645






Manatees





Back at the Club by two p.m.

A party was held at the pool.


5 comments:

LL said...

What a wonderful way to spend a Memorial Day.

Buck said...

For Bruce and Buck; Eyeball Liberty

And we thank you, we do!

What LL said. Great pics!

Barco Sin Vela II said...

Thanks for coming around, Buck and LL. Someone has to do the dirty work that is required, and if that someone has to raise some hell? Ok, throw me in there...

Bob said...

Could someone get away with squatting on the uninhabited island, do you think?

Barco Sin Vela II said...

Bob; ..."Could someone get away with squatting on the uninhabited island, do you think?"

You could, possibly. But you would have to use local cover for a shelter. I don't doubt the island is owned by someone or the County.

But the joke was that AW1 Phil Nazarro, USN (A nationally known wit and raconteur) called it an "Uninhibited" rather than acknowledging no one lived there.