Uneventful cruising. Colder than we've had recently, only 63F. Add to that wind and humidity.
We anchored out at Pine Island.
Wednesday, we have about 6 hours of cruising to get to Jacksonville. A delay at the railroad bridge just before the marina may hold up our travels. According to the Coast Guard notifications, construction is being done on the bridge and it will be closed from 8am to 5pm with an opening between 11:30 and 12:30. We can't be there by then so will need to wait until 5pm to get through.
Swampy along the shore.
There's about 2-1/2 kts of current as we get to the St. Johns River. Also saw quite a lot of industrial areas coming into Jacksonville.
These cargo ships just amaze me. The size and mass. Fortunately, we didn't meet any, these were docked.
Shrimping. Check out the birds following this boat. Easy pickings for these birds.
As we get closer to Downtown Jacksonville, we see the stadium.
As advertised, the railroad bridge is closed. We find a free dock close to the stadium and tie up for the wait. About an hour in, Jerry goes on the bridge to check something out and finds the bridge is open. Start the engines and head over to the bridge. As we get close, it starts to go down. Jerry hails them on the radio and the bridge tender says there is a train coming. We're getting good at waiting for trains. 
We passed this yacht, Kismet, on the way to the railroad bridge. Jerry guessed it at about 80' long I checked it out on line, 223' and it's for sale if anyone is interested. Only $85,000,000!
Bridges everywhere. The train took 14 minutes to pass. It was going extra slow it seemed to me. After this train, there was a pair of engines waiting to cross the bridge. The bridge tender opened the bridge and let us through making the train wait. Nice.Once we're through, we head to Ortega Landing marina. Tie up and get settled in.
Thursday, Enterprise picks us up and we head out to Panama City to get our car. We have a late lunch with Zias then turn around and drive back. It was after 9pm before we were back at the boat.
Tuesday, Valentine's Day, we have a bagel at Panera then make our way to St. Augustine. What a lovely city. Walked around downtown and had lunch at a great little Irish Pub close to the water. I had read that the Whetstone Chocolate factory had an interesting tour so we bought tickets for that and headed over. We did enjoy the tour. Along with learning about how cocoa is harvested and processed, we got to try about 5-6 samples of a variety of chocolate. On the way back to the boat, we made a detour and found Mayport. We heard this was the place to buy seafood. Also, there is a great restaurant, Singleton's Seafood Shack. It is just that, a shack, but we didn't stay for dinner this time. The seafood market was just closing so didn't get anything. Headed home for a nice evening. I boiled up the last of the shrimp from Carrabelle along with a salad. Yummy!
Thursday, Jan and Bob Colvin came by the boat after their visit to Mayo. Jan suggested we try Singleton's in Mayport. It was close to 2pm by the time we got there so we were all hungry. They had eaten there before and had the seafood platter for 2. Said it was huge and we could all share. It was more than enough for all of us. We were stuffed and left some on the platter. Unbelievable the quantity of food. And it was good. After lunch/dinner, we checked out the Safe Harbor seafood market just down the street. What an array of fish to choose from. Will definitely be back to stock up the freezer before we head out. Next Jan wanted to show us Atlantic Beach which was on the way back. We stopped and were able to walk out on the sand. It was beautiful. There were a few people taking in the afternoon. Black Skimmers were hanging out on the beach. An incredible site to see when they flew up and around. One last stop, Mochi frozen yogurt. Great afternoon with wonderful friends.
Tomorrow, Saturday, we're leaving for Atlanta. April is so ready to have this baby. We'll be there to help out then will head home to take care of a few things like the dreaded taxes. But we get to see family and friends. Can't wait!
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