Isolating in Jacksonville

We are anchored in downtown Jacksonville, Florida, between the FEC railroad bridge and the I-95 bridge, near the Baptist Hospital (map). This is a familiar and comfortable anchorage for us, which we have nicknamed the Suspicious Boat Anchorage, owing to a humorous visit we had from a sheriff's patrol on our very first stop here five years ago.


The lovely view of the Jax skyline from our anchorage.

Catching up on the last two weeks, we arrived at the St. Johns River entrance just after the flood started, and had a swift and uneventful ride upriver to our usual anchorage, just north of the junction of the ICW (map). We selected a spot a little southwest of our previous spot, as there are now two mooring buoys in that location for the enormous dredge spoil barges being used for the unending channel maintenance. Two tugs hauling empties had followed us in from sea and were tying to to the moorings as we were setting our hook.

The new spot put us much closer to the beach on Great Marsh Island, which is only accessible by boat. With public beaches still closed in the afternoons, a few families were getting their beach time in by boat instead. We splashed the tender, loaded up our trash, and headed across the river to check out Jim King Park and Boat Ramp. We were looking to see if they had any water, which we could not remember from our last visit here.


Norwegian Sky, the first of several idled cruise ships we passed.

While the free pumpout station appeared to be operational, we could not find a working water spigot in the entire park. We were glad we decided to check first in the tender, rather than fighting the current to bring Vector alongside in shallow water for no good reason. We had a quiet evening aboard, with the hum of the BAE shipyard wafting across the river.

It would have been quiet all night, too, if not for the weather alert going off every half hour. We had a couple of thunderstorms pass over us, not a big deal, but we were under a tornado watch all night. We had to keep the weather alert on all night, even though most of the warnings were for other counties or offshore, and neither of us got much sleep.


Norwegian Pearl. Lots of lines, no gangways.

Even so, we were up early, to catch the last of the morning flood for the trip upriver. Winds were blowing 20-30kt when we woke, and we weighed the anchor at 0800, right after a thunderstorm passed by. Even with the high winds, it was the right move, as I was much happier to have two extra knots behind me rather than against me.

The trip upriver was eerie. The bulk cargo and container docks, normally bustling, were mostly empty. On the other hand, two giant RoRo car carriers were in port and unloading, including one that passed us as we were weighing. Just like the glut of inbound petroleum in excess of available storage, an endless stream of new cars continue to arrive in the US and are stacking up in ports around the country. The bottom has already fallen out of the oil market, and I think cars will soon follow.


Carnival Ecstasy, at her home dock. She left for sea a short while later.

We also passed no fewer than four idled cruise ships tied up, only one of which, Carnival Ecstasy, was actually at a cruise pier. The others, mostly Norwegian Cruise Lines, were tied up at various cargo quays, but had no gangways whatsoever. No one off, no one on. One even appeared to still have a handful of passengers in cabins, likely non-citizens in quarantine.

When we arrived at our destination of Metropolitan Park, at the sports complex on the eastern edge of town, winds were blowing 35 knots. That made docking a non-starter, even at the imminent slack water, and we dropped the hook off-channel across the river to wait it out (map). While we were anchored, our old friend Bella Vita, the 250' luxury yacht that had joined us in Clayton, NY and again in Cleveland, OH, motored upriver past us, then spun around and tied up at the large vessel mooring in front of the downtown Hyatt, 30-knot winds and all. I almost radioed the skipper to ask why he was following us around.


Bella Vita running upriver as seen from our anchorage. TIAA Bank Field in the background.

By the time slack again rolled around, about 4pm, winds had abated quite a bit, and we weighed anchor and maneuvered over to the outside face dock at the park. We were pleased to find the electricity on, as opposed to having to swipe a credit card in the machine to activate it, but disappointed that the water spigot did not work. We had vaguely remembered the water was not working on our last visit here.

Fortunately, as I was walking around the marina later, I discovered the water problem was limited to the face dock, and we were able to attach our hose at the next slip over and fill our tank. Louise did all the laundry that had piled up around the boat, I got the batteries equalized, and we got most of the recycling backlog off the boat as well.


Sunset over Jacksonville from the flybridge at our spot on the face dock.

It's a bit rough on the outside dock, and especially when passing traffic creates wakes, and so at the morning slack we moved the boat around to the inside of the basin (map), tying up port-side-to so we could offload the scooters. It was great to finally get them on the ground and started back up after a long hiatus. Docked a short ways from us was the Edith B, an American Tug we recognized from the anchorage at Staniel Cay, and across the fairway we met, at a distance, the nice folks on Duchess of Chaos, a Gulfstar motor yacht.

With the scooters on the ground I was able to make a pilgrimage to our mail service in Green Cove Springs, where waiting for me were the new pump for the watermaker and several bags of nylon fittings. We also had two months' backlog of mail, including the new registration sticker for the boat. The counter is closed; you now call them from the parking lot, remaining in your vehicle, and they bring your mail out and set it on a shelf. It felt very safe.


Vector in a mostly empty Metro Park marina.

Less safe was Walmart, where I made a stop on my way back, our first Walmart since leaving for the Bahamas. I was hoping to find a pulse oximeter (no dice), but they at least had the zinc lozenges we've been trying to source for weeks, and they even had 70% isopropyl alcohol, although they are keeping it behind the pharmacy counter now and you need to ask for it. I also picked up a few groceries. The store was very uncrowded, so even though many shoppers were not masked or being serious about distancing, I was able to keep a safe distance throughout. I made one final stop on my way home, at the drive-through (in my case, ride-through) at Dunkin' Donuts to pick up a couple of bagels for breakfast.


At the donut shop. Really. Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh.

We stayed at the dock a few days, leaving before overstaying our welcome. We learned from the harbormaster that the marina is technically supposed to be closed, but he was keeping it open to help support those of us living on the water, with few other options during the pandemic.

While we were there, we managed to make a few take-out lunch and dinner runs, trying the Burrito Gallery, which we will skip henceforth, over in the Brooklyn neighborhood (which, ironically, is much closer to where we are anchored now), and old downtown standbys for us, Casa Dora and Indochine. We made a run to Publix for groceries, and grabbed a sandwich at Firehouse Subs across the street when the store proved too busy to enter safely. A second attempt at a less busy time was successful.


Norwegian Gem, which appeared to have a few passengers. Giant RoRo behind her is unloading cars.

Other than running errands, or strolling the park to get some much-needed exercise, I spent every waking minute at the dock working on the watermaker. I really wanted to get it done while I still had a scooter available for miscellaneous hardware items, and I did end up making two runs to the hardware store for parts.

The other thing I really wanted to get done while we had the scooters was to pick up a pulse oximeter (read here to learn why). After coming up empty at Walmart, and not wanting to needlessly enter more stores than I had to, I did some digging until I found one at a Walgreens a few miles away. Fortunately it was across the street from Lowes and I was able to combine trips.


Pulse Oximeter. My O2 saturation is good. And it was sale priced, even.

We mostly had the enormous Metropolitan Park entirely to ourselves for our daily strolls, which was also quite eerie. The parking lot for the football stadium across the street, now called TIAA Bank Field but famously known for its predecessor the Gator Bowl, has been entirely taken over by the city's drive-through Covid-19 testing facility, administering 400 tests daily. There are easily two dozen police cars stationed there daily, with perhaps a half dozen on guard overnight.

I don't know if it was because I was right across the street from the drive-up testing, or just from being in Jacksonville at all, but my phone kept alerting me to a walk-up testing facility at a different park four miles away. We are both eager to get antibody tests, but don't feel the need to get nasopharyngeal swabs without a compelling reason.


I kept getting these text alerts on my phone when I was near Metropolitan Park.

I mostly got the watermaker fully operational while we were still at the dock, putting out its rated production, but I have been continuing to fine tune it here in the anchorage. And I've knocked out a few other items on the to-do list as well, including changing the main engine oil, and disassembling the failed bow thruster motor to see if I can revive it.

We're very comfortable here in Jacksonville, with access to everything we need. We will be continuing with our distancing protocols and our provision decontamination methods even though Florida has decided to allow numerous businesses to begin opening Monday. We will not be "dining out" in any restaurants for some time. It remains to be seen whether the partial reopening will make our own choices more difficult.


This enormous gator graces the park plaza.

Unless that proves to be the case, we will remain right here, perhaps moving among various anchorages and hitting the docks occasionally for water and pumpouts, until we need to move north due to our insurance requirements, sometime later this month. I have more project parts arriving to a self-service Amazon locker here by the end of the week, and even though the scooters are back on deck, we'll find a way to make one last pickup at the mail service before we leave.


Yes, that does say we saw a wind gust of 64mph (56kt). We thought it might have been exagerated until we saw heavy construction barricades ashore knocked over.

I have been working on a Great Loop recap post which I hope to have out soon, and I might do a project-specific post, but this is likely to be my last routine travelogue post until we are under way out of Jacksonville later in the month.