There is a chance for thunderstorms later this afternoon, so we are up and off the dock before 8:00am in hopes of being tied up in our slips at Ortega Landing before the rain starts. Fred keeps a close watch on his favorite weather sites so we know what we might encounter. Shortly before noon it begins to sprinkle and Fred decides we either need to slow down or stop for a bit while a thunderstorm crosses north of us. We are very near Green Cove Springs Marina, so we call them to see if they have space where we can tie up for an hour or so while the storm passes. While they don’t have any dock space available, they do have some mooring balls that are not being used and they tell us we are welcome to grab one for a few hours if we would like to. Both Boreas and Once Around get secured to a mooring ball and then the skies open up and it pours. It rains so hard that the waves are knocked flat and we can barely see Once Around who is moored just a few hundred yards away.
Finally the rain begins to let up and Fred reports that we have a small window in which to make the rest of our trip before another storm is upon us. We head north again while carefully watching the weather radar on Fred’s iPhone as well as the radar on Boreas. We pick up the pace a bit and run hard for about ten minutes which gets us to the Marina at Ortega Landing just before the next storm hits. The prediction for this second storm is for high winds and damaging hail, but fortunately we don’t see either one. This storm is short-lived and we make a quick trip to the grocery store after the rain clears. To end the day we order pizza and enjoy dinner and drinks on Once Around with Frank, Carrie, Carla and Evan.
Miles: 47.6 Bridges: 4 Locks: 0
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| cooling towers near Palatka |
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looking under the I-295 bridge south of Jacksonville you can see
some of the highrise buildings in Jacksonville in the distance |
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