Day 108 – N 30° 8.792’ W 81° 41.956’ Fleming Island, FL – HOME!

It is uncanny how things seem to work themselves out.  We wanted to get home today, before dark.  We checked our log for the time it took us to get from our anchorage in the St. Johns River to Fernandina Beach in March as we were going north on this trip, and it was 4.5 hours.  And we checked the time it took us to get to the anchorage from downtown and it was 3 hours, and we know that it takes an additional 2 hours from downtown to our home in Fleming Island.  The tidal current in the St. Johns River is the deal maker/breaker.  If it was not flooding when we arrived, we had no chance to make the last 5 hours of the trip.  So Peter consulted his tidal current tables, and the flood would begin at 15:30 at our anchorage location in the St. Johns River, making it 20:30 (exactly the time of sunset) when we should arrive home.  Working the times backwards, meant that we should leave Fernandina Beach at 11:00 in order to arrive at the St. Johns River at 15:30.  So that is what we did.

We had strong southeast winds all day today, and they seemed to overpower the tidal current in all the rivers we were in.  Our boat speed rarely was over 5 knots while we plodded down the ICW at near low tide.  We had to be very vigilant because there are many areas where the depth is questionable, especially at low tide.  We avoided running aground, but in a few locations must have grazed the bottom, as the depth sounder was reading 4.5 feet.  With our slow progress, Peter feared that we would be late arriving at the St. Johns River, which might mean that we would stay at the Jax Municipal Marina overnight and finish the trip tomorrow morning.  So as we emerged into the St. Johns River, we were pleased to note that it was 15:45, only 15 minutes behind schedule.  We were confident we could make up the lost time by motor-sailing, as we were (finally!) able to take advantage of the strong southeast wind making our way west into the St. Johns River.  Sure enough, by the time we had motor-sailed the 3 miles to the anchorage location, we were only 10 minutes behind schedule.  As we continued up the river, we became aware that we would actually arrive downtown before 18:00, where we would have to wait for the Main Street Bridge, which would not open until 18:00 because of rush hour restrictions.  We waited 15 minutes, but that meant that we were still 30 minutes ahead of schedule and would likely arrive home by 20:00 instead of 20:30.

The Jax skyline as we approach Main Street Bridge

Leaving downtown, the river turns south-southeast toward Fleming Island, 10 miles away.  This meant that we could no longer motor-sail.  The strong 20 to 25 knot wind was kicking up 3-foot waves and was blowing right at us, but the tidal current was with us, so they neutralized each other and we motored at 5.5 to 6 knots to our destination, arriving at exactly 20:00 – HOME.

We’ll follow up with some statistics and afterthoughts later, but this journey is finished.