When a light rain fell on Friday it seemed that someone was pouring lime Kool-Aid over Andiamo. That effect was the residue that was left from our double whammy of midges. The side effects of green residue and dead bodies hiding under all that we touched were just too much. A major clean-up was in order. Everything came out of the cockpit and all canvas came down. We spent two days cleaning every inch of the boat and a day to waterproof the bimini. Monday evening, Andiamo was as clean and shiny as a new penny and we were ready to move on.
The best part of that stay was enjoying happy hour with Jay and Linda on their restored 1984 Albin 27 Family Cruiser and visiting a delightful Canadian couple moored just two boats down from us.
Silver Glen Springs is truly awesome when it is not overly crowded. During our visit, there were small crowds during the day and at night only a few boats remained. Tuesday we took the dinghy down the channel to check water depths and enjoy the scenery. Knowing the true depths of the channel, we were much more comfortable on our Thursday departure. It was interesting to observe the different types of fish and to see blue crab and turtles crawling on the bottom.
Later we kayaked up a swamp, there the water sported a layer of green slime. We saw alligators, turtles, deer, butterflies. and a variety of birds; we heard even more.
Early Morning
Morning Eagle
Osprey
Butterfly at Work
Family Outing
Hiding in the Shade
Butterfly at Work
Looks a little iffy!
Alligator in Hiding
Slimy Turtle
Of course, not everyone agrees with us, in the summer many visitors come to socialize, and they love the crowds. Surfing the web, I found several pictures and YouTube videos showing the summer party life, I’m happy they are having fun, but even more happy that it was not like that during our visit. The max number of boats we saw at one time was about ten and that was only during the day, at night it mostly belonged to us.
Friday we hiked the Boil Springs (aka. Jody’s Springs) and Lake George trails. Naturalist Archie Carr said of Boil Springs, “There is no one big, river-making outpouring, but instead a scattering of gentle little geysers of crystal water and snowy sand bubbling in the bottom of a shallow pool surrounded by the evergreen hammock. Some of the boils are no bigger than your fist, some are the size of a washtub.”
Boils Springs was depicted as Jody’s Spring by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in her opening chapter of The Yearling.
Silver Glen Springs
Jody’s Springs
Fishin’ at the Glen
Thursday morning we went for our morning swim, let the fish entertain us while we had our tea, weighed anchor, and headed back downriver. Part of the entertainment was the jumping mullet, we saw hundreds while at the Glen but never did get a decent picture. They would jump 3 to 5 feet in the air, splash down and repeat the jump 2 or 3 times.
Morning Entertainment
Saint Johns River, the longest river in Florida, is 248 miles long and goes through a several lakes, one of which is Lake George, the second largest lake in Florida. The river flows from Sanford, FL, north through Jacksonville, and east to Mayport on the Atlantic Ocean. If you are going to do a side trip on the St. Johns, without hauling your boat, you must enter and return from the ICW, travel upriver and then return back north. Therefore, we retraced our float plan and started back down river (North?) to Ortega Landing. On our way, we took a detour on Murphy Creek hoping to find an anchorage away from Palatka, aka midges. We were somewhat successful that evening, however as we motored through Palatka the next morning, thousands of them hitched a ride on Andiamo.
After provisioning, and purchasing a new dinghy, we were ready to continue our trip on Friday. However, high winds kept us at the marina until Sunday. On Sunday we cruised forty-seven miles to Palatka and tied up at the Palatka City Dock, where we were immediately inundated with midges (blind, nonbiting mosquitos.) Fortunately, the screens kept them out of the boat and cockpit, but only pictures can describe what the outside of our boat looked like.
Palatka, in the 1800’s, was the winter playground for such notables as President Grover Cleveland and industrial giants such as James Mellon. As the citrus and lumber industries thrived and trains and paddleboats brought tourists to the river, Palatka became known as “Gem City on the St. Johns.” Much has changed since those days, the “Great Freezes” of 1895 killed the citrus trade, over cutting killed the lumber business, and today’s tourists prefer destinations further south. Before leaving Palatka we did a morning walk to view the city and many of the murals they have commemorating the golden era of Palatka.
Palatka Memorial Bridge
The Putnam House
Night Passage
Harlem Nights in Palatka
Mary Lawson Hospital
The Georgia Southern and Florida Railroad
Cattle Drive to Paynes Prairie
Senator B. C. Pearce Agricultural Mural
The Wild West Comes to Palatka
St Mary’s Episcopal Church
Putnam Treasures
Putnam Treasures
1886 Slogan – Delicious and Refreshing
High Time in Palatka
Bygone Days
Is this Juliet and…
Romeo? I think they have escaped.
Mural in progress. . .
First Presbyterian Church
New Dinghy
River Front Walk
From Palatka, the river narrowed and became an array of lakes, creeks, small towns, oxbows, fishermen, fish, and bird life. On almost every navigation marker, we saw ospreys with babies. In some cases, this made reading the marker difficult, the locals just refer to it as “Osprey Architecture.”
We had planned on spending Monday night in Georgetown, but they were also having a midge hatching and recommended that, if we wanted to be rid of midges, we continue to Silver Glen Springs, apparently the midges do not like the springs.
The entrance to Silver Glen Springs is a half-mile long, narrow creek that is currently, due to the lack of rain, very shallow. If our boat didn’t have a less than a two and a half foot draft, we would not have been able to enter. Our depth gauge, due to the amount of grass under our keel, gave a false reading of -0.9 all the way in, my stomach was in knots and I was so thankful that we did not hit bottom.
After anchoring, we spent the next three hours cleaning up our midge problem. We had thousands of them on the boat and the green gunk they left was amazingly difficult to remove. Once we had the boat taken care of we were able to enjoy the amazing “Glen,” as the locals call it, crystal clear water, steaming with mullet, tilapia, black bass, striped bass and a variety of panfish. We went for a swim in the crystal clear water, watched an eagle land in a tree next to us, had a glass of wine, and watched the moonrise.
Leaving before sunrise, we enjoyed a very placid Monday morning as we passed the wetlands, forests, and birds along the Matanzas River. This portion of our trip took us very close to the Atlantic Ocean, past historical Saint Augustine, under the Bridge of the Lions, and past the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve. We left the ICW at mile marker 740 and entered the Saint Johns River traveling west to Jacksonville.
We spent a very quiet night at the free Metropolitan Park Marina in Jacksonville and on Tuesday we moved to the Marina at Ortega Landing on the Ortega River. Our plans are to spend a few days here provisioning for our trip up the Saint Johns River.
Sunrise at Palm Coast
Tomoka State Park
Tomoka State Park
Tomoka State Park
Tomoka State Park
St. Augustine Lighthouse
Saint Augustine Inlet
Saint Augustine
Memorial Presbyterian Church
Bridge of Lions
Castillo de San Marcos
Dredging the Channel
Name of House: #1 Bass House
Dolphins at Jacksonville
Jacksonville Dames Bridge-169 FT
Metropolitan Park Marina-Gray Heron
Metropolitan Park Marina Snowy Egert
I fell out of the nest, help me.
Maxwell, good to the last drop!
Jacksonville
Ortega River Bridge – 1920’s Vintage
See you on the water!
Sunrise 6:37 am – Sunset 8:10 pm
• Temp 86 F Hi – 63 F Low – Sunny
• Day 191
