Hooray! Carina's On the Water Again

. . . AND WE'RE BACK ON OUR FEET

If we seem to have suddenly disappeared, it was partly planned, partly unplanned. An unplanned stomach bug shared by us both, followed by a planned visit home, kept us from posting.  We're both healthy now and are reassured that the house is still standing. Best of all, we had a chance to be with family and many friends. We are thankful for the friends we were able to connect with and just wish we could have seen everyone.

When we left St. Augustine in early April, we motor sailed to the free public docks in downtown Jacksonville. Our long-time cruising friends, Stan and Annie, met us at the dock and we all shared a wonderful evening. 

It was heavenly! We started smelling the wonderful aroma of roasting coffee for a 

couple of miles before we found the source -- a large Maxwell House plant on the 

outskirts of Jacksonville. 

A downtown restaurant center is out of sight on Carina's port side. A fabulous view 
of downtown Jacksonville is everywhere else.

At night, downtown Jacksonville is beautifully lighted. Each bridge is lighted in a 

different color, it seems. As still as a boat may seem, it's not really still, as you can 

see. Hopefully, it gives you the impression of the city's beauty despite the blur. 

Carina at the Jacksonville city dock with a blue and red 
lighted bridge and railroad bridge in the background.

After leaving Jacksonville, we traveled up the St. John's River to Green Cove Springs Marina. It's more of a boat yard and dry storage facility than a marina with docks. However, 

it suited our purposes, and we had Carina pulled from the water. 

Carina waits her turn to be lifted from the water at Green Cove Springs Marina. She was put on supports "on the hard," as it's known. We then rented a car, filled it with things that weren't needed on the boat, and drove home for two weeks. 

When we returned from Chattanooga, we were able to repair the bottom paint, varnish the wood inside the cabin and make other improvements -- all while living aboard. We were in the company of about 50 other boats being worked on at the same time. One by one, those boats will be moved to the marina's dry storage area. Many people from Canada and the northern U.S. spend winter months in the Keys or Bahamas, putting their boats into dry storage for the rest of the year. Green Cove Springs Marina is considered relatively 

protected from hurricanes.

Kent rolls on the first layer of bottom paint to repair bare patches. Eventually he put three layers on those patches. Bottom paint is specially formulated to keep barnacles -- our nemesis -- and other growth from attaching to a boat's bottom and slowing 

it down. Even with good bottom paint, a boat in saltwater has to be scraped monthly.

Stan, Kent and Annie together just as we were leaving. They welcomed us to Jacksonville and saw us off from Green Cove Springs, and in the middle, showed great hospitality to us travelers. We look forward to sailing together when they get the engine on their Catalina, 
Kokopelli, up and running again.

Carina is returned to the water. The marina's Travel-Lift is like a rolling hangar for boats. It's driven like a car through the marina -- a large, awkward car maybe. When Carina was on the supports, the Travel-Lift was driven to her front and sides. The straps were put around her belly, and she was raised up. Then the Travel-Lift was driven to the launch site where she was lowered. It took longer to put the dinghy in the water than it did to put Carina in.

We immediately headed to Sister's Creek past downtown Jacksonville. While running our usual 2200 rpms, the current helped push us a few times to 10 mph from our more typical 6.5 mph!   We'll tie up to a free dock at the Sister's Creek community park for the night. Once again, we'll be rocked to sleep by the rhythm of the boat in the water. We've missed it.



Next: Doing America's Great Loop