St Johns River Side Trip: Planning and Preparation

February 2024: I plan and prepare for what would be an 11-day side trip up the St Johns River in Florida.

When I first came up the coast of Florida in mid February 2023, I really wanted to take a side trip up the St Johns River. But my late start out of Fort Pierce and the clock ticking for my required arrival at Oriental in North Carolina at March month-end meant that I just couldn’t take the time to do it. And that’s what’s really needed to explore the St Johns: time. Although I was able to get as far south as I wanted to and back in 11 days, I can’t imagine doing it any quicker and still enjoying what it has to offer.

Although I tried to provide a brief summary of my trip and stops in one blog post, I quickly built up thousands of words, far too many to leave in one post and expect folks to read them. So I split it into multiple posts that I’ll release over the coming days. As I type this, I’m still on the St Johns River and still believe I’ll be finished with this side trip within 11 days of my start, but who knows? Things change.

But I think it’s important for me to share the experience and get it out to readers now. Many Loopers are making their way up the Florida coast as I type this and are trying to decide whether this side trip is for them. I’m hoping to provide enough insight to convince some that it is.

Planning

I’ll start at the beginning when I was still in St Augustine. Weather delayed me — heck, rainy and windy weather has been haunting me throughout my travels in Florida this year. I don’t mind driving the boat in the rain — my inside helm is pretty cosy with the heat on — but I really detest being bounced around on rough water for hours on end.

So I had plenty of time to plan. I did that with a few resources:

• 
  My friend Nagui, a solo Gold Looper in a Rosborough joined up with a bunch of other Rosborough owners for a trip up the St Johns last March. Here’s the photo he shared that hooked me on this trip.

  Notes from my friend Nagui, which included a photo of his boat and the other Rosboroughs he was traveling with on a body of crystal clear blue-green water — exactly the kind of water I’d been looking for down in the keys without actually finding it. He’d traveled the St Johns in March 2023, the year he finished his loop.

• Aqua Map, an indispensable app for all Loopers with its ability to display Waterway Guide and Active Captain icons and data for marinas, anchorages, and free docks.
• Data from Waterway Guide, a great resource for Loopers and other east coast boaters.

I started by creating a route in Aqua Map that went from where the ICW crosses the St Johns River all the way down to Sanford. Although it’s possible to go farther, I didn’t think I really needed or wanted to. Going through this exercise made it easy for me to figure out mileage between stops. I like to do 20 to 40 miles in a day when I’m traveling but I suspected I’d do less on this part of my trip, mostly because I expected to find a lot of No Wake zones to slow me down. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t.)

With that done, I began picking overnight stops, favoring anchorages with shore access for my pups and free or low cost docks. I’d already pretty much shot February’s budget for marinas and keeping costs down was vital. What I came up with was this:

• 2/6 – St Augustine Municipal Marina
  -> 34 nm
• 2/7 – Jacksonville, Jim King/Sisters Creek Free Dock
  -> 21 nm
• 2/8 – Ortega River Anchorage (I planned to stop for fuel at Arlington Marina where diesel could be had at a good price and then visit some friends at a marina near the Ortega River anchorage.)
  -> 20 nm
• 2/9 – Green Cove Springs Town Dock. This was almost free: just $20
  -> 29 nm
• 2/10 – Palatka Free Dock
  -> 26 nm
• 2/11 – Georgetown Marina. This was supposed to be just $1.25/foot
  -> 33 nm
• 2/12 – Hontoon Landing Anchorage (or State Park Marina, if I could stay; it was supposedly closed)
  -> 3 nm + 14 nm
• 2/13 Blue Springs for a stop and then on to Stanford

That was the plan for the trip south. I’d plan the trip north when I was ready to turn around. The goal was to visit places I’d missed on the way south.

But my plan changed as I traveled. (Don’t I keep telling you that plans change?)

Provisioning

Since I knew I’d be away from a supermarket for at least a week, I bought provisions at the Publix in St Augustine. I bought so much fresh fruit, veggies, meat, and dairy that I had to fire up my second fridge out in the aft cockpit, which I really hate to use. But since I planned on moving every day, I wasn’t too concerned about the power draw. (My engine charges all batteries on board as I cruise.) And as I ate the food I bought, I’d be able to downsize what was left into one fridge, which I did.

I also topped off my fresh water, had my toilet tank pumped out, and did laundry. I didn’t know when I’d be able to do any of these things again. The facilities at my planned stops seemed limited.

To be continued…

Plan set and provisions stored, I was ready to cast off.