Florida Georgia Line

Today marked a significant day in our adventure, for me anyway.  Today we crossed the Florida Georgia border.  This is meaningful for me in a number of ways.  First, is that in all my travels in the US, I never was in Georgia.  Not even through Atlanta, where the old joke is that you have to go thru if you're going to Heaven.

More importantly though, is that after traveling ~450 miles from Key West we leave a state that I have felt relatively familiar with.  The reality is that it is only the section from Miami to Fort Lauderdale, but still, it is Florida.  Today takes us into uncharted waters for us and an affirmation that our Grand Adventure is solidly underway.

We delivered Wendy and Craig from our stop at Amelia Island to Jacksonville Airport yesterday, courtesy of a loaner car from the marina.  That is a nice perk of some of the marinas here that they provide courtesy cars.  Normally used for provisioning runs, but useful for other tasks like airport runs as well. We had a great week with them, seeing St Augustine, lots of dolphins, urban ICW and some rural Florida as well.

The run to Amelia had some interesting events, including dredges working on clearing some of the shoals in the channels, and crossing the St Johns river with a massive container ship going by.

We stopped for our first major refueling since Key West, just before we left Florida.  With 3 good data points now, cumulative fuel burn has been averaging under 5 gals/hr, which I think is very good for these engines, as long as this boat is run at hull speed.


After the airport run, we visited nearby Fernandina Beach.  If you have ever been to Port Townsend, it is very similar, without the bluff.  A town frozen in time in the late 1800's. A very pretty place, with lots of antique homes and commercial buildings from a wealthier time for the town. The only drawback is the nearby Rayonier pulp mill that any BC resident will know leaves a distinct olfactory impression.

Today's run included 3 more river crossings, one of was at the very mouth of the river in the exposed Atlantic.  Although I am getting somewhat used to navigating the shallow waters here, the twists and turns of this one around the shoal areas had me very focused.

Georgia's coast isn't nearly as long as Florida's of course, less than 100 miles as the crow flies, but the ICW route is very twisted, and although I haven't laid out my course completely through it, I suspect the total miles run will be close to twice that.

To celebrate our arrival in Georgia, we went for dinner at the marina restaurant, Coastal Kitchen. Judy had Georgia shrimp and cheese grits, and Greg enjoyed lobster and crab ravioli, which was all excellent.

Next significant stop should be Savannah Georgia, for azalea blossom time.