Dredging and Weddings, no connection

November 14, 2016

I just received a friendly tap on the shoulder from my BIL that I had not been keeping him posted on our whereabouts, thank you John.  This one is for you.

Let's see, where was I?  Oh yes, we are still having a wonderful time.  It is taking me a while to work through the fear and trauma of last years travel down the East Coast, but as I replace that awful experience with good experiences, the days are less filled with fear. Isn't that the truth about lots of events that happen in our life.

Moving on to the fun we've been having.

I have not written since November 2, 2016.  I am sorry to say I let the political news take me away, but I am back.

We have spent 3 nights on anchorages since we left Hilton Head and that has been nice. We stayed at New Teakettle Creek, Ga, I don't know what happened to Old Teakettle Creek. We anchored in Vernon River anchorage and St. Simons Island, GA.  We made it easily through Hell Gate and Little Mud River without any problems.  These two parts of the ICW in Georgia can be difficult for the mariner asleep at the wheel, they may find themselves aground.  At times as we idled along, there was less than a foot of water below the boat.


We stopped at St. Simons Island and spent the day with friends, enjoying the island and stocking up on supplies.  I love SSI and could easily live there. News of winds coming our way lead to a late afternoon decision to leave SSI and head for Jekyll Island. In our planning we neglected to check for water depth at low tide.  Sometimes we had less than 1 foot below the keel.  It was impossible to travel in a straight line so that meant reading the chart plotter and depth sounder closely.  I think my fear of being in high winds lead to a hurried decision.  It was a harried trek through low waters to get to the Jekyll Island Anchorage.  Our plan was to spend the night there and move quickly past Cumberland Island to cross St. Andrew Sound before the 15-25 mile an hour winds started.  I consult a very knowledgable friend that owns a sailboat and lives in the area when it comes to winds and waters, she made a suggestion about the most helpful way to get to our next stopover.  We did make it to the Jacksonville Free Dock for the night before heading up the St. John's River to The Marina at Ortega Landing, also in Jacksonville, but about 3-1/2 hours away.   The free dock was very nice, with about four other boats there.  We had cocktails with a couple that are also new to boating. We moved on after one night on the dock.

St. Simons Lighthouse

Dog snatcher at it again

We are staying at the Marina at Ortega Landing from November 4 through November 30.  At that time we will travel the St. John's River, possibly as far as Sanford, FL.  If you have the interest you can look up the St. John's River in Florida and see just how much there is to explore and enjoy. We will be at the marina for T-Day, because there is a large celebration with all the boaters.

Back to our marina.  I read the description of the marina but they were only words, I love staying here.  Swimming pool, hot tub, free laundry, nice showers and a beautiful club house. Clearly the nicest marina we have visited. Most of the boats are here year around and may go off for a trip to the Bahamas or Maine or never leave. Some people no longer own "stick built" homes, they live on their boat and own a car here.

November 4 arrived at the Marina at Ortega Landing. Here are some of the pictures.

Club House

Swimming pool, check out the flags flying straight

No one likes it when old stuff is dredged up...unless

No one likes it when old stuff is dredged up...unless

When there is shifting of the soil at the bottom in any marina it has to be dredged periodically to deepen the little canal between the slips where boats come and go.

There has been a dredging operation since we have been here, incredibly interesting to watch.  The  backhoe or excavator takes shovels full of muck, swivels around and dumps it into a large barge.  When the barge is full the tug takes the muck to a place where it is transferred one scoop at a time into a dump truck to be taken away.  It would be cost prohibitive to take the barge out far enough to unload it in the ocean.  Rob has a great video of the operation but it took too long to upload.  If anyone wants to see it, we can send it to you.

This parrot lives on one of the boats here and although he is 30 years old he might live to be 60 or 70. It was very fun to see this bird and talk with his owner who was enjoying the hot tub.  There is a Maine coon cat on the boat across the dock from him and he torments the cat by sitting in the window  .

,

He likes velcro 

We flew to Texas on November 10th for a family wedding on the 12th and flew back home on the 13th.  While we were there we visited the Quinta Mazatlan, the largest restored adobe home in Texas and it is a city owned bird sanctuary. We arrived just in time for a history tour of the building and estate. This space is also rented out for events such as weddings after hours for several thousand dollars.

Inside the house is in the style of the exterior of the house except for one room.  I still do not understand the significance

of the room, it might have something to do with the person that donated a large sum of money.

Here are the pictures of that one room.

The Last Supper

Mariachi Band

I don't know what this is but thought it was colorful

Humor

The outside area of Quinta Mazatlan. 

The cat family of Mazatlan, can you name that cat?

Jaguarundi

Mountain Lion

Ocelot

Bobcat

Panther

Bird Feeder

We just had a grand time with family in Texas, here is the proof.

If anyone wants to see all the pictures let me know and I will send you the link to their Shutterfly page.

 Whitney and Brad Keller.

Successful times

Tricia