You’re sitting in your cubicle, bustin’ your butt, working working working. You’re thinking that you can’t wait until you can retire and go cruising. You can retire at 62, but 65 would be better. Your social security check will be a f…
April 22 – Blue Spring State Park
St. John’s River – Anchorage
“Limitless and immortal, the waters are the beginning and end of all things on earth.”—Heinrich Zimmer
One of the things I have been looking forward to on this cruise is getting to explore some of the beautiful clear springs along the St. John’s River. Today we had the chance to visit our first one. We cruised up river to a beautiful anchorage just past the entrance to the Blue Spring park. It’s in an oxbow in the river and ranks as one of the top five anchorages we’ve stayed in since we started cruising…it’s amazingly pretty and remote. No river traffic, no lights, no sounds except the sounds of nature, surrounded by beautiful trees draped in Spanish moss.
After enjoying a nice lunch on the flybridge we took the dinghy to Blue Spring StatePark. The spring is a designated Manatee Refuge and is the winter home of the West Indian Manatees that live in the St. John’s River. A park ranger told us that they counted over 400 manatees in the spring this past winter. The springs are closed to water activities from November to March to keep the manatees safe, but visitors can view them from the boardwalks and overlooks along the spring run. During warmer months the springs crystal clear, 73 degree water offer swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving, tubing and kayaking. There is also a limited underwater cave system that can be explored by divers. We were lucky today to see one manatee in the spring run…it was fun seeing him in the clear water. I can only imagine how it would be to see the river full of them in the winter. What a sight!
I brought my snorkeling gear with me, because I knew I couldn’t pass up swimming in this crystal clear water. After walking the length of the spring run and doing a little exploring I had the change to swim into the spring pool and then down part of the spring run. After I had gotten out of the water we spotted a small alligator…poor thing was probably scared to death when the tuber saw it and started screaming…kind of glad I was sitting on the over look by then.
This evening we took the dinghy into the Snake River…a small, very small, tributary to the St. John’s River. Like it’s name, it snaked its way around part of Hontoon Island. We had a chance to see a lot of birds, turtles and a few alligators. It was a wonderful day…blue skies, great temperature and amazing scenery.
Blue Spring State Park
The manatee we saw
Part of the boardwalk along the spring run
Getting ready to take the dive into the cool water. My new rash guide kept me very warm
The Blue Spring pool
Tuber on the spring run…the little spot in the center of the picture is the alligator.
Exploring the swamp on the Snake River
Happy Birthday, Dee Dee!
Today is Dee Dee’s first birthday. Keeping with her nautical heritage, she met this important milestone off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina as she embarked on her second offshore overnight passage. We are all very proud of our little girl and l…
Tourist Office, Ancient House and Basso Cafe : a big email with lots of photos
Cheers,
Singkey was just here for a long weekend and also new friends Peter and Cathy for a night and lovely day, so I’m pleasantly tired. But I’m getting so far behind on my Ipswich emails that I’m sending this out as is and hopefully most of it makes sense!
Singkey taking her turn in the […]
We Have Pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, so this Mac laptop is fantastic, but the operator, not so much. I had Tom B. re-send me the pictures I seem to have messed up yesterday. I had to tell him that a lot of folks might be really unhappy with me if I didn’t get these pics …
Have a Furthur Adventure and help captive Orcas
Great Musicians come together to help Free the Orca’s
One by one the rock bands that had booked to play at Sea World learned of the horrors of the place and refused to play. Our own Seattle band Heart, Joan Jett, and many others told Sea World they could not support the captivity of Orca Whales.
KISS THE SKY! The Orca Freedom Concert
www.orcafreedomconcert.org/
Many of those groups got together today in Seattle to do the Kiss the Sky concert with all proceeds going to anti captivity groups. Some of my favorite performers were there, Grahan Nash, Heart, Joan Jett, Country Joe MacDonald. Many of my old whale hugger friends too; Ken Balcomb, his son Kelly, Paul Sponge, Michael Harris and others. the group of which i hold a board position, Orca Conservancy was a prime organizer. i have never wanted to be back in Seattle as much as today, getting video clips sent to me during the show. Graham Nash backed by Heart doing CSN songs, wow!!!
Not being there i did the next best thing, i donated a 3 night cruise on Furthur in beautiful Thailand. The bidding is already going well. So friends here is your chance to spend time with the Furthur crew, enjoy some of the best cruising in the world and help whales all at the same time, Please send in your bid today!
https://www.charitybuzz.com/catalog_items/498414?preview=1
i hope one to see you on Furthur, and so do the whales in captivity.
Capt. Brian,
Day 102 – 365 Project…Brock Mill House and Pond
Welcome to day 102 of 365 photos…Brock Mill House and Pond, located in Trenton, North Carolina. Brock Mill Pond is one of Jones County’s most scenic and historic areas. The first gristmill was built at the site before the Revolutionary War. All photos except for the one below were taken on Auto using my Canon… Continue Reading
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Heartbleed 101- what should you do…
Heartbleed 101. Hmmm…I’m a bit late with this post and I’m sure by now that everyone has heard about the Heartbleed bug. It sounds like a medical term, doesn’t it? There are a gazillion websites that you can see the exact particulars of Heartbleed but I am going to just do a brief synopsis on… Continue Reading
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April 21 – Hontoon Island State Park
Park Dock
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ―Marcel Proust
We enjoyed the day playing in the park. It was another cool day in Florida…I actually had jeans on most of the day. I even put on my hoody when we went for a bike ride. We rode all over the park exploring. It’s a beautiful place, but we didn’t see much wildlife, only one armadillo and three turkeys. There’s a lot more bird watching to do from the dock…in fact a Great Blue Heron come by for a visit this morning. I think he wanted some of the scrapes from the catfish Stan was cleaning. Stan caught two fish last night but didn’t have any luck today. We’re really enjoying the fresh fish.
We had the park pretty much to ourselves today, only a handful of people came over on the ferry. We took the ferry across the river to do a little exploring at Hontoon Landing Marina. A very nice marina and resort with a little gift shop and bait shop, but our main reason for going was to buy more red wigglers (worms). Stan spent the afternoon and evening with a line out, but nothing was happening today…it’s a good thing we have food in the freezer.
Hontoon Island State Park
Our little morning visitor
Park map showing the trails we took today while riding our bikes
View from the trail
We finally had blue skies by sunset
Technical Difficulties
It’s 11:08 pm and I got home from the barn a mere 2 hours ago after being out since 8 am this morning. In my hurry to leave the office for a dental appointment, I neglected to forward the boat pictures to this computer. Well, I thought I did, but…
