Saturday 11/9/13 we left St. Augustine & headed south to Daytona Beach. The sights along the way were breathtaking. As always the birds are plentiful and make me look like a good photographer. 

The dolphins played in our wake and you could hear the noises they make chatting with each other and air coming out their blow holes. God made some beautiful creatures.

There are not shortages of docks some more creative than others.

Saturday afternoon we settled into the Halifax Marina in Daytona Beach. The weather again forced us to stay an extra night.  No one wants to deal with an angry ocean that causes the ICW to rumble. We did run into Randy & Barb, Lazy Dolphin again. They are on anchor just outside our marina. They were able to turn us onto a nearby (within walking distance) local Italian restaurant where we all ate delicious food.

Tomorrow Monday we head out to Titusville. We plan on spending a few days there visiting friends.

I will continue to say WE ARE HAVING A BLAST!

Wednesday night 11/6/13 we spent a relaxing night at floating docks at Jacksonville Landings. The lights were breathtaking as you can see from this picture.

Thursday 11/7/13:  Our trip planner suggested a shove off time of 6:00am. Only problem, it was still dark at 6:00 am so we left at 6:45. We rode the tide seeing 10 knots. Now that’s flying for us! 

After 10 months of planning we finally reached the ICW at 8:52 am.  We were greeted by several Dolphins and I am sure they were saying ‘Welcome to the ICW’.

The current stayed with us as we pushed on to St. Augustine to our final destination Camachee Cove Yacht Harbor. What a great marina. We didn’t feel comfortable docking at the location they had selected for us so they gladly put us at another dock. The staff and accommodations were excellent. 

Strong winds kept us at the dock for another day. No problem. We took advantage and my sister and her husband come over and meet us for lunch. 

Weather permitting we continue our southward journey tomorrow.

We are having a BLAST!!!!

This morning at 9:45 am we left our home dock in Green Cove Springs, Fl.

Heading north to catch the ICW out of Jacksonville then south.  Its an exciting day for us.

Be sure to check back on this blog to follow our adventures.

Update: We are still in Green Cove Springs, Florida waiting to leave. We finished up all the "boat" stuff Friday. Yea! We have some personal business to deal with on Monday then we hope to get out of here either Tuesday or Wednesday. 

We got a nice surprise yesterday when we looked up & saw another Great Harbour GH37 coming into port. It was Barb & Randy Semper on Lazy Dolphin. Nice to meet other GH37 owners. 

Also our friends Winnie and Wayne have returned from their trip to Europe. Cant wait to catch up with them. I see dominoes in our future. Winnie is the dominoes queen.

Update on our plans

We just returned from a week at the AGLCA Joe Wheeler Rendezvous, Alabama. It was a great learning experience and we meet some awesome people. We went by car but plan on docking at the spring rendezvous in Norfolk, VA.

We continue to get ready to head out for the winter. A friend told us 'the hardest thing to do is get away from the dock'.  We are living those words. LOL. There always seems to be one more thing to do.  Our plans are to leave next week…..ok another cruising saying “plans are written in sand.”  Do I need to say anymore!!!

To all our land locked friends we will miss ya. To all our looper friends keep an eye out for us we will be on our way soon.

On September 6, 2013 we left the marina in Green Cove Springs and headed north to a marina on the Ortega River. It was a bitter sweet day.

Our amazing journey began in January 2013 when we purchased Double JJ a Great Harbour GH37. We have spent the last 8 months completing the retro-fit and watching the transformation of Double JJ into our awesome Great Harbour GH37 now named Twelve Stones.

Our move north to the Ortega River signifies the next chapter in our journey. Look out ICW (The Ditch) & Key West here we come.

We cannot begin to thank all the people who have helped us get to this next chapter in our journey. We have met some incredible people with incredible stories.

We are EXCITED and cant wait to get on The Ditch. 

17 Days On The Beautiful St. Johns River

8/20/13 - We arrived back at our home dock in Green Cove Springs, Florida after 17 days and 210 NM on the St. Johns River. We had an awesome trip. We finally made it all the way to Sanford, Florida and spent a week at Boat Tree Marina.  The Marina has a deli, beauty shop, pool, and poolside restaurant. Excellent staff at the marina.

Gerhard & Karen Munster fellow MTOA members live about 3 minutes from this marina. They were gracious port host, having us over for dinner & taking us grocery shopping. We enjoyed getting to know them both.


While at the dock we had some much needed electrical helm work done. While we already had what was suppose to be "new" electronics installed in April we later discovered this was not the case and have had to go to the expense of getting most of the stuff purchased and installed AGAIN. Hopefully that bad experience is behind us. With the new electronics the trip back north on the St. Johns came off without a hitch. YEA.


As always the St.Johns river is a beautiful and peaceful river.

Breathtaking Birds

 

 

Boat Tree Marina, Sanford, Florida

 

 



Boat Tree Marina, Sanford, Florida

 



 

Boat Tree Marina, Sanford, Florida

 



Proves you can see just about anything in the river!

 



Pool Time

 



At Blue Springs Entrance

ver.