May the 4th be with you! Happy Star Wars Day 🙂

We pulled up our anchor at Mile 769 anchorage with our new friend, Leslie on “Avalon”.  It was a beautiful weather day which made it easy for Jen to drive while Mike worked.  We traveled 61 miles in almost 9 hours.  

In Jacksonville, we did a small side trip and drove towards the inlet to see the Navy military base. We got to see a helicopter practice moving a barrel and dropping it off to a specified place. It was also exciting to see all the huge Navy ships. 

Heading back towards the ICW we saw a huge yacht (“Siren”) that Kelly looked up and found it belongs to the second riches person in the UK, David Ruben.  He is Indian and made his money selling carpets and then real estate and stocks. We got to see them test their water cannons to defend off pirates.  It was cool but a harsh reality of offshore long-range travel.

Later, we decided to stop for fuel. We don’t have fuel gauges, so Mike has to measure the levels in the tank and do some calculations. He determined that we could make it to Jekyll Island in 2 days but felt safer if we got fuel now. Kelly found a marina that was easy on and easy off. Price was $6.30 so we decided to hedge our bets and only got 150 gallons! The Wishes crew did a great job, and it was only about a 45 minute detour.

The ICW can be tricky because of water depths and high/low tides. One of the challenges is watching your charts and attempting to visually gauge depth. Today was one of those challenges. We ran aground. Fortunately, BoatUS happen to be passing by and we flagged them down to help us. It wasn’t serious because he was able to get us out quickly. He gave us some tips about the waterway north of us which was a big help.  “Avalon” bumped the shallow water too but was able to pull herself out.  

Afterwards, we (Wishes and Avalon) decided on an anchorage just a few miles up.  When we got there, it seemed a bit too shallow. So, we pushed on to Fernandina Beach which was another hour away. Glad we did. The depth was 25 feet, lots of open space and it was beautiful.

Jen took a shower out on the back deck and watched the sunset and dolphins play. Teddy sang for us tonight as well… see video below. Along with videos of military training.