May 7-8, 2017 – Sunday & Monday
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.
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.
See you on the water!
- Sunrise 6:34 am – Sunset 8:12 pm
- Temp 92 F Hi – 78 F Low – Sunny
- Day 196