Taxi

It was a pleasant evening reuniting with friends we have not seen since the winter.  About an hour after anchoring last evening, we dinghied over to "Soujourn" at Ortega Landing Marina and met up with John and Kris was also there from "Miss Kitty", which is just across the fairway.  John was gracious enough to drive us to Mellow Mushroom and then to the grocery store.  It was fun catching up and hearing stories, especially the rumors about Ray's recent delivery job.  We still have to find out how all of that came about once we catch up with some other cruisers in Marathon.  We actually called it a fairly early evening after the previous one.
Today was mainly dictated by the Florida East Coast railroad bridge in downtown Jacksonville.  It is in disrepair and under a reduced opening schedule.  This is the same bridge that is going to be closed for a week or so next week and why we wanted to get through it before that delay.  We opted for the 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. opening because the 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. opening would not give us enough time to reach or intended destination.  We pulled up a very muddy anchor out of Ortega River at about 8:30 a.m. to try to time or arrival just right.  We did a great job, but there was a train coming so we got delayed anyway.
Linda mentioned the possibility of stopping at Metropolitan Park in downtown to wait for the tide to turn in our favor.  Ray was afraid we would not leave once there and didn't think the current would matter that much.  Well, we barely made five miles per hour all day and were easily overtaken by a large ship just as we went under the Dames Point Bridge, which has a 169 foot vertical clearance.
The tide finally turned about the time we reached the Intracoastal Waterway, which then again did not help us.  We actually turned north for just a short jaunt up to Sisters Creek where there is a free dock courtesy of the city of Jacksonville.  There were two sailboats already docked prior to our arrival, then a third sailboat docked behind us making an even less gracious approach than we did in this ripping current.  The last vessel to arrive, a power catamaran timed their arrival much better when the current was not so strong.
Tomorrow we will officially start heading south.  We are going to try to time our departure at slack tide and ride the current down the Intracoastal Waterway to get a push.  Well, we try to do that as much as we can, it just never seems to work out.  We'll see.