St Johns River to Sanford

Checking out Deep Creek in the dinghy

The scenery was beautiful

Just a lazy river

You never know what is 'round the bend

NautiNell at anchor in Deep Creek

Sunset at Deep Creek

Lily Pads and floating hyacinths have
about taken over the river

Where's those swamp boys now!

Very pretty and "old Florida"

HonToon State Park

The Spanish Moss adds to the beauty

Waiting on the train  - only 7 foot of clearance



He almost was too fast for me to get the picture!
Wow, they're loud!

One of the four trains that we had to wait on
no worries!

Reminds me of Russellville on the Arkansas River!

Interesting little boat house

Beautiful sunset just above Lake George

Yeah, it's a bar in an antique store.......

Linda taking her best shot!

Didn't know but I guess Sanford used
to be known for it's celery?

Sunset view from the Riverwalk

Heading “UP” the St John’s River going “South”

June 2 Monday  About 9:30 after spending a great night at the Metropolitan Park “Free” Marina we headed south on the St John’s River.  Now this is actually going up the river because it flows north.  It’s a bit confusing for me but that’s what is does!  So we are going south upstream.  Nothing can go wrong here, right?  We have about another 150 miles before we reach Sanford where we’ll stay at the Monroe Harbor Marina.  We planned to take our time and soak it all in so about 3:00 we dropped our anchor at an anchorage called Deep Creek. Today’s trip was uneventful.  However we’re glad we’ve been told that it gets prettier as we go because this is just a big ol’ river with lots of industrial sites.  It’s wide open and brackish water.  It reminded me of the Ohio/Mississippi.  But this anchorage is really pretty.  We hadn’t been here 30 minutes before we had a visit by a huge alligator.  That was only the first.  Before the night was over we saw well over a dozen.  We took a dinghy ride on up into the creek – it was so peaceful and beautiful.  Of course we saw more gators – felt a little uneasy about putting my hand in the water!  Ha!  We cooked steaks on the grill and listened to the hoot owls all night long.  What a nice evening.

June 3 Tuesday   After a very nice night of anchoring we headed out this morning about 8:45.  It was much prettier today once we got past Palatka.  The river reminds me of home on the rivers and lakes but without any bluffs.  No mountains here!  We planned to spend the night at a bar/restaurant named Porky’s.  They usually will let you stay at their dock for the night.  We called them and they agreed to let us stay there for $20.  Sounded pretty good.  However it didn’t work out so well.  The dock looked pretty rickety and somewhat falling apart.  We didn’t want to take the chance with a boat our size so we went about another mile or so and dropped anchor.  It was just past Georgetown Marina and right before the entrance of Lake George.  It was about 2:00 and the wind was picking up so we decided not to venture across the lake.  We would save that for the morning.  We planned to take the dinghy out in the morning to check out the clear springs we’ve been told about.  Again it was a very nice night with a gorgeous sunset.

June 4 Wednesday   AARGGH!!!!  I take away everything I said nice about the anchorage!  Yes, we did sleep well and it was quiet but we had no idea what was going on outside until morning.  We had been warned but we never dreamed it would be this bad!  We thought we had stayed far enough from land.  But what did we know!  We woke up to MILLIONS of bugs on our boat swarming like crazy.  They are what are called blind mosquitoes.  At least they don’t bite!  BUT they were awful and they leave a greenish/brown residue everywhere!  They were literally everywhere including all over us once we tried to get rid of them.  Thank God they didn’t get inside!  We hightailed it out of the area and hoped the wind would blow them away – no such luck.  They were all over Lake George swarming and floating in the water.  We fought them all day long!  It is so hard to describe how many there were but I’m not exaggerating when I say MILLIONS!   Now this area was the prettiest part of the trip after we crossed the lake but most of the day was spent killing and washing way these stupid bugs.  We planned to stop at Hontoon State Park but it was too shallow for us.  I thing we both just wanted to keep going anyway until we could reach the marina.  We needed to hose the boat down.  We decided to go on the additional 18 miles to the marina.  We didn’t think it would take that long to get there but there are no wake zones pretty much all the way to the marina AND a railroad bridge which has to be raised for us.  We had to wait on four trains before they could open it.  Sheeh! 

Finally we made it to the marina about 4:00 and were greeted by our friends Ray and Linda (Second Noelle).  It was good to see them although they did have to laugh at us and NautiNell because they had gone through the same thing with the bugs.  I don’t know why they thought it was so X%&F& funny!  J  After today we were not so sure this trip on the St Johns was worth it.  A good night’s sleep in the air conditioning maybe will help.

June 5 Thursday  We spent the entire day power-washing the bugs off our boat.  Everywhere we looked we would find more.  At least they were all dead now!  J  Now the boat is probably cleaner than it’s been in weeks.  We can finally relax a bit.

AND what we needed was a night out on the town.  Off we went with Ray and Linda to check out the area around the marina.  They have been here a few weeks so they have checked out the hot spots/cheap beer.  The first place we checked out wasn’t necessarily the cheapest one but it was very cool! It was the Imperial and was located in the Washburn Imports Antique Store.  Yes a bar inside the antique store.  You can sit at the tables and chairs that are there for sale.  It was rather a different bar too – everything was “eclectic” for the best way I can describe a bar that doesn’t have domestic beer or even a coca cola!  However we each found a beer we liked – or at least three of us did.  Mike had to choke his down.  Next it was off to The Quite Man – an Irish Pub.  That’s after we passed three different “dives” that we may hit next time.  This time we had a little bit better choice of drinks but not much.  There was a kid in there with a MIZZOU shirt on –we had to talk to him. He was drinking a “banana bread beer”?  yep!  He was from Springfield MO – only about sixty miles from my hometown of Joplin.  Small world.

Next we walked over to the West End Bar – now this is a spot we liked.  They have 2 for 1 on everything from 12:00 to 9:00.  That’s some happy hour!  And they had Bud Light!  Mike was happy.  We had a beer there and then we were off to the Celery Craft.  This place again had weird beers but we all found something we liked, plus they had a shuffleboard table.  We played Ray and Linda a couple of games  - and I might add – we beat the pants off them!  Just lucky, believe me!  After that it was over to the Riverwalk Pizzeria which is about a block from the marina.  Again more beer and a great pizza.  Then it was back to the boat for another drink or two.  Then it was night night.  It’s hard to keep up with those young whipper-snappers!

Okay maybe the trip was worth it.  Not saying yet for sure.  Plan to check out the town and take a few dinghy rides to check out some clear springs where you can snorkel.  We’ll see.  I’ll get back to you on that.  I do know one thing when we head back north we will definitely not spend the night anywhere around the Lake George area.  That's for sure!

Till next time!

Admiral “C”