M/V Nearly Perfect: March 17-21, 2015

We left Lamb's Marina round 7:30 to begin our trip up the St. John's River ("up" because the water flows from south to north). The River was pretty wide during the first leg to Palatka. We anchored out in Carmen's Cove Tuesday night and took the dinghy over to the city. We walked around but there wasn't much to see and not much going on, so we took a dinghy ride along the shoreline. We left Carmen's Cove around 8:30 Wednesday morning and arrived at Blue Spring State Park at 5:30. It was a long day but the River narrowed and was absolutely beautiful. Most of the areas we passed were wildlife areas; not many housing areas. Thursday we took the dinghy to the Park to check out the spring-fed creek. This is the home to many Manatees in the winter, but sadly they had moved out to the warmer waters by the time we got there. We did see many fish swimming in the very clear water. We walked around for a while, then went back to the boat and took off for our next anchorage. We traveled about an hour and a half and anchored in a nice cove at Butcher's Bend. More dinghy riding and more wildlife. Friday morning it was time to head north again. We traveled about 7 hours and anchored in another quiet cove. The scenery and wildlife have been amazing the entire trip. We saw several gators, turtles, many ducks and birds. We went to sleep at night listening to the frogs and woke up listening to the birds. Saturday it was time to get back to civilization. We left our anchorage around 8:00 and arrived back in Jacksonville around 2:00. The trip today was pretty foggy. All in all it was a great week. It was Mother Nature at her best.