South Carolina to Florida in a Day

We had an absolutely delightful evening at Harbortown Yacht Basin in Hilton Head watching a beautiful sunset over the harbor as the last of the golfers making their approach shots to the 18th green.

We departed Hilton Head at 715am and under bright sunny skies headed south down the ICW. Today's journey took us through the "low country" of South Carolina and the ever-meandering rivers, creeks and canals of Georgia. In fact we went south, and east, and west, and even north as we traversed the convoluted waters and sounds. As I told you in my last log, we planned to get to Fernandina Beach, FL today as the forecast winds are expected to become rather strong and out of the E-NE. That means ENCORE would be exposed to the open inlets and sounds with head seas forecast at 5-8 feet. Not a good way to spend the day.

We finally reached Fernandina Beach about 230pm only to discover that BOTH the nearby petroleum plant and paper mill were working full bore and with the strong NE winds and were blowing a rather unattractive scent right over the marina. The Admiral gave me one of "those looks" with a slightly turned up nose. It seemed that Fernandina would NOT be our next port of call. In all fairness, the other driving force in continuing on was we could get through all the open sounds and cross the St. John's River today and it would minimize any wind we might have to deal with the next few days.

So we continued down the ICW and reached Jacksonville Beach around 430 this afternoon. After 9 hours on the water and 175 miles (our longest distance yet), we are looking forward to celebrating our arrival into the Sunshine State with a margarita (or two) and a good nights rest. We will probably start out again early tomorrow and finish the day somewhere around Daytona Beach.

Entering the St. John's River

Jacksonville Beach, FL