Christmas Day.... Merry Christmas!

We left Jekyll Island Marina this morning at 0730...still a bit windy so we with Saint Andrews Sound ahead of we opted to take an alternate route that avoids going out into the sound and avoid the breaking waves that Saint Andrewes is notorious for.

The alternate route was provided by Bob 423 ICW Cruising on Facebook and was a winner... there was plenty of water depth and no waves... THAKNS BOB!

We almost crossed paths with some friends Theresa and Peter Clarke aboard their sailboat "Dream Ketcher" they were just ahead of us on the ICW.... they were headed for downtown Jacksonville up the St.Johns River... we saw them on AIS all day and visually as we exited Sister's Creek into the St. Johns River... almost caught them...

We had one interesting experience today at the San Pablo-Atlantic Blvd Bridge on Pablo Creek... we had current running against us slowing us to about 4.5 knots... at this bridge the ICW narrows to the span of the bridge opening... currents can increase to over 5 knots and the turbulence that is created is incredible.... today it was running at around 6 knots against us at the bridge... I increased engine power to an RPM that would have pushed us about 7.5 knot with no current... SAILS bobbed around like a cork in the turbulence as we approached thh bridge, and as we passed between the bridge fenders, we slowed to 1 knot... felt like we were going to stop for a moment... I was just getting ready to give it more power when the speed slowly started to increase... we made it... he current is always an issue and today was the worst I have ever experienced there... Susan does not like this bridge...

With the current still raging against us we decided to stop earlier than planned... we had hoped to make it an anchorage near ICW Statue Mile 765... Pine Island Oxbow Anchorage... but with the current we would have arrived around 2000... TOO LATE...

We arrived at our destination for night at Jacksonville Beach Marina at approximately 1545 and were secure on the dock with power at 1600... Our location for the night N30°17.368', W081°25.110’. We traveled today for 8.5 hours covering 57 nautical miles averaging 6.7 knots.

Bitter cold this morning... Cold front passing over the east coast dropped temps to in the teens overnight and with the wind single digit wind chill... 19° when we dropped dock lines and departed... 0730 underway.

Winds were strong all day 20 to 25 knots out of the WNW... making open sounds a bit lumpy but for the most part we were in protected water and no waves.... just windy... believe the highest temp we saw today was 27°.... Brrrrrrrrrr!

Saw only one boat today... it was ship that was disable in Brunswick... 650 ft Car Carrier "Treasure" was beam across the channel.... plenty of room to get around him... We heard him hail the Coast Guard announcing he had lost propulsion and was anchoring in the channel... when we passed two large tugboats, and two pilot boats were on scene... pretty cool!

We arrived at our destination for night at Jekyll Harbor Marina at approximately 1815 and were secure on the dock with power at 1830... Our location for the night N31°02.818', W081°25.357’. We traveled today for 11 hours covering 73 nautical miles averaging 6.6 knots.

Forecast for today was for high winds... 25 to 30 knots with gusts to 40 knots... we decided to not move today... however the anchorage we are in is not that protected from winds so we found the closet marina to us.... Delegal Creek Marina on Skidaway Island....about 5.5 nautical miles from us. We weighed anchor and were underway at 0730.

The winds were a steady 30 knots with frequent gusts over 40 knots on our stern and the current was running against us... running at about 5.5 knots... waves were 2 to 4 feet. We had to make a turn to port into Delegal Creek and waves and wind were now on the beam... was a bit hairy for a few minutes until into the creek with some wind break from land on our port side.... still had the winds but no waves.

Docking at the marina was almost hands free... slow down allow wind to drive us to the dock... BANG we hit fairly hard but that was expected with the beam winds at 30 knots...

We arrived to Delegal Creek Marina at approximately 0830 and were secure on the dock with power at 0845... Our location for the night N31°53.390', W081°03.737’. We traveled today for 1 hour covering 5.5 nautical miles averaging 5.5 knots.