28 miles to Jacksonville

These short distance hops have been very nice,  Jacksonville by car is 10 miles further than it is by water when coming from St. Augustine.  My two nights at Conch House Marina were very nice, there is lots to do in St. Augustine.  A few days prior I made friends with another cool powerboat headed to New York with a final destination of Lake George, Craig and Jeff have been motoring the same direction as me ever since we left Smyrna Yacht Club the same day.  Craig’s boat is a beautiful Pearson True North 33

The lines of this boat are timeless.  Its efficient in the water, elegant, fast, can handle weather, and is comfortable to drive.  The transom opens to easily pull a dingy aboard or use for boarding.  Down East style luxury lobster boat roots

I look forward to visiting Jeff and Craig when I make it up to New York this summer.  They were nice enough to introduce me to two girls they had met in St. Augustine, Summer and Mara here vacationing from California we all had a fun evening Thursday and I talked them into riding to Jacksonville with me!

Its super cool the connections you can make on the waterway.  St. Augustines Conch House Marina was going to be busy this Memorial Weekend so Friday I headed north to a well protected marina in Jacksonville called Beach Marine.  This is a very pretty ride through narrow areas with beautiful homes and also lots of wooded areas and marsh land.  This area of the ICW is part of the Tolomato River.  Some homes have directional arrows in their yards that have the distances to various destinations like the keys or other stops north or south on the ICW, those are cool to see!

This one home says Jesus Is Lord, I like that a lot

The boat houses and docks in this area are incredible and make me dream of the one I would like to have one day.

There is a little storm brewing in the Atlantic right now so this is a great area to layover a few days and also let the memorial weekend traffic lay down.  My good friend Andrew Gund lives only a few miles from Beach Marine so he is going to spend the weekend here with me.