Started: 31°21.414′N 80°55.513′W

Anchored: ICW Mile 710, Cumberland Island, 30°45.943′N 081°28.329′W

Log: 58 nm. Time 9½ hr. Engine 9½ hr.

We spent the night under a full moon, lighting the ocean all around us. Full main and stays'l, and engine at idle speed pushing us along at 6.2 knots.

Wind picked up a bit, and the last two hours involved some 3'-4' chop: but it was daylight and we were following the buoys up to an anchorage we used last year behind Cumberland Island.

We even had a fair tide coming in this morning. Fair tide leaving. Perfect Weather. Full Moon.

Wow.

Time to invest some fresh water in a little washing up. Tomorrow we'll launch the dinghy and stretch our legs. Thursday or Friday we'll head off to Fernandina Beach for a few days.

Eventually, we want to get to Jacksonville.

It's 23 miles to the St. John's River. That's 5 hours or so; add an hour at each end to get out and get in, and we might be able sail outside, avoiding the ICW shallows.

This sounds good until we look at the tides. At the end of this week, tide is high at mid-day, and ebbing out in the afternoon. We'd be fighting the ebb tide into the St. John's river.

If we go down the ICW instead, we have a rising tide in the morning which helps us get through the shallows in fine style. And at 5.5 knots, we'd arrive at the St. John's river by about well, one-ish in the afternoon. Rising tide the whole way means that if we bump something — as we did last year — we'd get floated off as the tide came in.

I think we're going to rent some dock space in Jacksonville so we can do some holiday visiting.

After that, St. Augustine. That part if the ICW has no real drama. It's the stretch between St. A and Fernandina which is more like Georgia Mudflats than properly dredged and maintained ICW.

When we get Red Ranger to St. Augustine, we will have run out of concrete plans. We want to see Vero Beach. And maybe go back to the Bahamas. Maybe see the keys. Maybe. We don't really know what. Other than get out of the cold.

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