Tonight will be our last night in Jacksonville. We turned in our rental car yesterday after completing all of the necessary provisioning of food and supplies..........we think. We have filled the refrigerator and freezers to the top. There is no more room. We have loaded up with canned food, coffee, dried goods, wine, beer and spirits to last for many weeks, maybe months. We made trips to BJ's, Publix, Walmart, Target, Ace Hardware and West Marine to get everything that we needed. If we go nowhere, we will at least have food and drink for quite a while.  We have used every bit of storage on the boat and she is sitting a little lower in the water due to the extra weight. 

The last couple of days have been cool and breezy...........sometimes windy. We definitely feel the need to get further south and to some warmer temps. There are very few people in the marina, so not much socializing with other boaters. We have been the only ones on C dock for the last few days. There was a little more activity when we were here in 2021. The WiFi is not reliable so we mostly use our phones as hotspots, but YouTube on the television has been working ok so we at least have a little entertainment at night.

It seems that dealing with boat issues is going to be a common theme as we continue on this adventure. When checking all of the systems the other day, the fuse on the bow thruster blew. I figured that this was due to some fouling of the props (it happened before). The diver went down today and cleaned it out and thinks it is all clear. The fuses are difficult to get and had to be ordered. I am having them delivered to the marina in Vero Beach. Once we get there I can install them and hopefully the bow thruster will be back in operation. I wish I could have checked it while the diver was here, but we couldn't have been that lucky to find the fuses locally. The dinghy battery seems to be working ok. I have been running it for a little while everyday. Hopefully we will have a working tender throughout the trip.

The Seakeeper is another story. We had contacted the local Seakeeper dealer and service tech before even arriving in Jacksonville in December. He came out to the boat to diagnose the problem and determined what part was needed. I have worked to maintain regular contact with him for the last two months. The young man is very nice and apparently had some serious medical issues causing a delay in getting the repair done. When I spoke to him on the phone yesterday, he apologized for all the delays and said he would be out today to do the repair. I let him know we are leaving tomorrow. After two phone calls today, with no answer, he still has not shown up and no communication. I guess we are not going to get the Seakeeper repaired before we leave here.

I really hate loose ends and these unresolved repair issues bother me. Thus the need for patience. Fortunately, the boat will run fine without a bow thruster or Seakeeper, however these are boat systems that have been paid for, provide a higher level of comfort and we are not able to use them when we could really take advantage of them. The Seakeeper in particular is a very expensive option to not be able to use.

We plan to be in St. Augustine tomorrow night and then take the ocean route to Port Canaveral on Friday. We will eventually get to Vero Beach, but timing will be dependent on weather and arranging to get this Seakeeper repaired.

A good weather window to cross over to the Bahamas is not predicted for at least ten days, so I guess we hang out on the east coast of Florida for the time being. Stay tuned!

We arrived back in Jacksonville on Thursday afternoon, rented a car and headed to the boat. I had a little anxiety regarding what shape I would find her, but as usual there was no need to worry. Jacksonville had some heavy winds a few weeks ago and I was concerned about covers blowing off. We had one cover come unsnapped, but it was held down by straps. So no losses. I always leave my open array radar perpendicular to the center-line of the boat, but it was sitting at a different angle so I knew the wind had been pretty strong and moved it some. 

The boat was a lot less dirty than I thought it would be and that is probably due to regular rainfall. Not much dirt on the boat, but quite a few streaks. A good washdown took care of those streaks and kept me busy for three hours. Encore is looking very good now. 

The local daytime temps have been close to 80 degrees since we have been here. This was quite welcome after leaving home with a few inches of snow on the ground and made washing the boat much more comfortable. We even had to run the AC.

Palm Cove Marina is a convenient location for this type of thing. There are lots of places for provisioning and there is a West Marine just down the street. Once we leave here, it will be a lot more complicated. The marina has worked well for us, however the WiFi, like many other marinas along the ICW,  is not always reliable. Sometimes it works great and other times there is significant lag or weak signal.

It has been a full moon the last couple of nights, so low tide is really low. 

The low tide will not be as low later in the week, but we will still need to wait until mid tide to head out the short channel that connects with the ICW. 

We hope to leave here on Thursday and head to St. Augustine where we have a reservation for a mooring ball. At this point, it looks like the weather will cooperate. Everything we do from this point forward will be determined by weather conditions. Wish us luck!