Dec. 14, 2014 Jacksonville, FL

Tis the Season!

Another beautiful day, nice enough to head back out into the Atlantic Ocean so we didn't have to worry about tides, currents & shallow water.  The ocean route is much more relaxing but there is a down side due to the lack of diverse scenery.  Doug was able to watch a dolphin jump completely out of the water, right next to our boat, more than once but not long enough to get his camera.

We left out of St Mary's Inlet from Amelia Island.  Amelia Island is 14 miles long & has beaches @ the southern end where there is an Omni Resort & a Ritz Carleton (where Doug was lucky enough to visit once for business). The Atlantic was kind to us again today blessing us with calm water & clear skies. Shrimp boats were out with flocks of Seagulls & Pelicans following in their wake.  A naval warship was spotted on the horizon & we did hear chatter on the radio of them conducting training exercises. After about 3 hours, we entered into the St John's Inlet that led to the St John's River.  A group of dolphins welcomed us as we left the Atlantic for the inlet. All of a sudden  there was activity with boat traffic & even car traffic on the nearby beach.  A Casino Boat passed us heading out to where it is legal to gamble.

St John's River passes right by downtown Jacksonville, their skyline against the deep blue sky is quite impressive.  We spotted the Jaguars football stadium, Jacksonville Landings and the Jacquar's owner, Shahid Khan's new 312 foot Yacht Kismet. After getting through downtown & passing under the Buckman Bridge we entered Ortega River.  Luckily, tide was going up near high tide because we saw some shallow spots north of the lift bridge. We will have to obtain some local knowledge before we venture back out this way.

We arrived at The Marina @ Ortega Landing & wow, what a super nice place.  Thank you Chuck & Susan for the wonderful recommendation & we hope to connect with you while we are here.  The docks are concrete, clean & floating.  The facilities are top notch & so well cared for.  There is a pool, hot tub with a big patio, boater's lounge upstairs with a big screen TV, gas fireplace & full kitchen.  Bathrooms are separate like you would have in your home and there are 5 heads & 3 showers.  Three stackable washers/dryers & shhhh..don't tell anyone but they're free.  Every area is spotless.

Of course, we had to celebrate our arrival & completion of our journey.  Garry & Jacque brought the bubbly & we had an official toast to" reaching our final destination for 2014" & to "our new temporary home".  We will be staying here for a month.  We topped the celebration off with an after dinner glass of wine in the hot tub.

Wendi, Tadd & Sam's patio & backyard

The following day was full of completing chores: teak maintenance, laundry & vacuuming.  We walked to the nearby stores: West Marine, Stein Mart, Hallmark, Belk & Publix.  Another great plus to have all of these within walking distance.

Wendi's Christmas decor in their pool

We have connected with my niece Wendi, her husband Tadd & their daughter Samantha.  They moved to Jacksonville about a year ago.  They are why we have made this our final destination for 2014 and we plan to spend a good portion of the holiday with them and some more of our family who will be visiting Wendi.  A big thank you goes out to Wendi & Tadd for being our chauffeurs during this time.  Wendi took us to her dentist for our 6 month check-ups.

On Saturday, we accompanied Wendi, Tadd & Sam to Universal Theme Park in Orlando.  We had an awesome time.  First, the weather was perfect: sunny, blue skies & 70's and the company was fun.  We can not get over how well everything is engineered & how every detail is exact.  The Harry Potter experience was unbelievable.  Thank you for inviting us along!

Gringott's Bank

We fly out on the 23rd to Ohio to stay with Jeri & celebrate Christmas with the Wendts & Benjamins. Looking forward to seeing everyone and catching up.  So far there is no snow on the ground & that would be ok with me if it stays that way.  I am ready for snow though, because I have Sam's hand me down Uggs that no longer fit her & fit me great!


I would like to take this time to wish all our friends & family a very Merry Christmas & joyous New Year!  I did not get Christmas cards out this year; you know how busy us retired folks are! Lol!

We have so enjoyed seeing many of our friends & family along our journey this year & hope to see more of you in 2015! Here's to a Happy Healthy New Year!
Peace & Love to all of you

Merry Christmas from Santa & Mrs Claus &....

.....Our very special traveling Duck!

Happy New Year too!

Dec 11-13, Amelia Island: Fernandina Beach Marina, FL

St Simon Lighthouse

Due to the large tides, especially in Georgia, we left St. Simons before sunrise-a tough concept for me.  I quickly stopped complaining when the sky awarded us one of the most inspiring shows I have witnessed.  (But then again, I haven't witnessed many sunrises)

Shrimpers out in the ocean

Traveled out of St Simons Sound to the ocean, we are not going to chance the ICW in this section. This part of the ICW has a reputation for being the most shallow of the whole waterway.   Yahoo-an Ocean Cruise, the weather was almost perfect for the ocean: calm winds, sun & blue skies but not warm enough for us, to use the bridge cuz we are wimps. The Coast Guard has been transmitting notices cautioning boaters to watch for Right Whales.  It is their season to calf & this generally takes place in the southern Georgia/northern florida shallow waters.  There are only about 400 North American Right Whales in existence.  Wouldn't that be amazing to see? We watched but did not see any signs of this spectacular & rare sight. We passed the Georgia/Florida border on this cruise.  Florida is our final state destination for this year, another milestone achieved. On our way into Cumberland sound inlet, we passed King's Bay Naval Submarine Base; we didn't spot any subs either.

Fernandina Beach

Pelicans eating discarded fish guts

Arrived to Amelia Island's Fernandina Beach. Amelia Island is the only place in the US to have been claimed by so many governments; it has survived under 8 different flags. What a great small town. We stayed on one of the mooring balls out in front of the Marina.  The Marina manages the mooring balls & does charge $20/nite but we are able to dinghy in to a dock & use all their facilities.  They have good facilities: clean bathrooms/showers & a boaters lounge. The marina is a nice size & has a restaurant & shop right @ the dock.

One of the homes decorated with
Carousal horses

Walking the 3 block downtown; we were impressed by the beautiful Victorian style homes, trendy shops, restaurants & bars. In addition to touring this cute town, we were able to participate in the Art Walk & watch the Holiday Light Parade.  One of our evenings here, we dinghyed into town & had a grand time @ the Piano Bar, sitting right @ the Piano & singing our hearts out with John Springer, the pianist.  His famous line: "If I were to play?" & we would have to guess the song.

singing @ the Piano Bar

The Duck loves pirates!

One of the art galleries

 While moored on the ball, we were blessed with beautiful skies & sunsets.

Dec 4-10: St Simon's Island, GA

sunrise, I don't see too many
of these

Thankfully, when we woke this morning, the fog that hung in on & off all yesterday was gone.  The sun was rising & the air was clear.  Although that didn't last, just as we were nearing a narrow, shallow area on the ICW the fog rushed in.  Waterford was in the lead & all of a sudden we could not see them even though they were only a tenth of a mile away.  We increased our speed until we were 200-300 feet away before we were able to see them.    We have great electronics so we survived just fine and the fog lifted before we reached the really tough stuff-thank goodness!  We were thrilled to have dolphins playing nearby for a short time.  The Georgia terrain is different from S. Carolina, both being pretty & interesting yet unique in their own way.  There is not much development along the way with more vast marsh land & the rivers are more twisting & turning.

sunset @ Golden Isles

We arrived on St Simon's Island, one of a group of islands named the Golden Isles.  We docked @ Golden Isles, Morningstar Marina.  A pretty big place with another long walk to the facilities.  We side tied along the outside of the face dock but this is off the ICW & in a No Wake zone so we were quite protected.  Since the day was sunny but cool, we got our bikes out & explored part of the island called Pier village on the ocean side. There is a pretty lighthouse, a great park with a community pool there & of course some beautiful big Live Oak trees interspersed with Palm trees.  The whole island is covered by a great bike trail.

Fort Frederica

our first orange tree w/ a Live Oak
growing around it

The next day brought more fog & cold temperatures.  We stayed put & did chores. We need days like this too.  Ok, so the next day started out foggy too, but we said no more chores.  We rode our bikes, which we could do because the bike trail never takes us on a road. We headed out to go to lunch & take in a movie.  The day continued to improve: enough so we could eat outside @ the Fancy Q and enjoy our sushi.  By the time we reached the cinema, the skies had turned blue & the sun was shining brightly. Change of plans: not going to sit in a dark movie theater when the sun is shining so we headed to the Fort Frederica National Monument.  "The ruins of old Frederica recall the struggle for empire in the Southeast in the 1700's." Spain & Britain were rivals both claiming the land in this area.

We checked out: independent & assisted living, skilled care
then cemetery down the street: 1 stop shopping

Someone over the years had found a blue print, so they are able to identify the foundations & whose homes they were, like the blacksmith & the doctor. That evening we were invited to our first Holiday party.  The Marina put on a party for their customers & visitors.  They had a Tiki bar set up in the courtyard and a full dinner buffet of chicken & salmon complete with grits (we are in the south).  We mingled with the Manager & some other transients (that's what we are called).  It's been easy to get into the Christmas spirit, lots of decorations around & boats decorated too.

We had decided to stay here @ St Simon's Island for a full week to take advantage of the discounted dockage price & we knew there was lots to see & do here. Our next day was cool & cloudy so we did take in a Matinee & saw Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.  It was entertaining & the popcorn was yummy.  The wifi @ the Marina sucks, like 50% of the Marinas we have visited and they do not have a boaters lounge so we visited the Starbucks on & off this week to use their wifi.

We used the courtesy car (Garry & Jacque are our chauffeurs because we don't have any auto insurance) to buy a new TV.  Lately the Marinas have been equipped with cable TV so we have been watching more TV.  Our TV is fairly new but does not have audio output capability and the sound isn't quite loud enough for our aging ears, so Doug found a reason for us to get a bigger TV.  We purchased the TV @ H&H appliance store. We also took advantage of the car & did some grocery shopping.

Live Oak, grows into ground then
out again!

Jacque & I took an afternoon & biked to Red Fern Village and did some girl shopping.  We found a great Wine & Accessory store that gave us samples of red wine, Sangria, Sparkling Moscato & a chocolate creme Pinot Noir.  Needless to say we loved this shop. We also found a Seafood Market that sold us delicious, fresh crab cakes & salmon to cook @ home.

Never too old to climb a tree!

Our last day on the island, was a pretty sun & blue sky yet cool day so we biked the rest of the island.  We biked through some interesting neighborhoods, some modest homes & some million dollar homes. We visited Coast Guard Beach, which has been left natural with out any development and stretches approximately 1 mile.  We feasted on lunch @ the Palmer Cafe in Pier Village where all 4 of us loved our meals plus the key lime pie with the brulee crust on top-OMG!

Coast Guard Beach

We were lucky enough to witness more than 1
Beautiful sunset here