March 18th. The night was one to remember, the boat was banging on the dock, Rich was out checking on it and bill saw his shadow and thought someone boarded the boat.  Bill never went back to sleep and Rich slept very little. I woke rich up a couple of times due to the banging.  We headed on and stopped at the Ortega landing marina which was great, Bill and Carole ran and errand, and then we headed on to Palatka, Fl.  We needed umbrella's this am, and sunglasses this afternoon. Called 5 marinas for fuel, that the book said had fuel and none of them did.  Should get fuel tomorrow at Georgetown.  We are at the.  Boathouse Marina, did laundry, Rich walked to town and I hope we will walk in to town in the morning.  Finally got all our wet clothes dried out. Bill is teaching us how to play cribbage, we are lucky he is a patient teacher.

Day two, RAIN, RAIN, RAIN, windy too, 3 pair of jeans day for me... Saw more white pelicans and dolphins.  Had reservations for a slip on the Ortega river, however they did not answer their radio or phone, we were in some shallow water, so we backtracked @ 3 miles and tied up at the Jacksonville landing, free parking, we are right in front of Hooters, where we had dinner.  Quite a night, more rain, the boat was banging around and kept the guys up a lot, and I woke rich up twice,  for the banging. Rich was out once checking the lines, and bill saw his shadow, and thought someone came aboard the boat.  Hopefully soon the sun will pop out, we are headed first to the Ortega marina for a fax for bill and then on down the river...or is it up ?  River runs from south to north!

We started our St. John River adventure today, Carole and Bill Heath joined us and we are on our way. Our son Mike joined us as far as Daytona, fl. Where we bought fuel. Mike and Beth had the boat spotless from bow to stern, inside and out.  On our way to St. Augustine we saw a couple small flocks of white pelicans,a and quite a few dolphins.  Once in St Augustine the marina help had dear Rich going here and there one guy directed him one way and another yelling no, over here. But Rich moved this big boat around like a pro. Our daughter joined us for dinner and brought dessert, Carole fixed a great dinner and the day way over before we knew it.  On our way we had a ski boat and wake boarder driving us nuts, darting in and out waking us and dropping the wake boarder too close to our boat. Bill yelled at them and Rich blew the horn big time.