Thou i did not intend to come in at JAX, poor timing would have had me coming into St Augustine at 3AM with the tide going out. Not a good scenario. So i bailed, made a sharp west turn and headed into JAX, the St John's river.
As I am going in I was Googleing free dock. This is the first thing I always do when looking for a place to rest. The only one was a good 3 hours up river. My second search is for restaurant with dock. I have had many free overnights because they have a place to eat (typically no power), and free dockage with a meal. I found one with 3.5 stars. OK, so that was our destination, and it was only 3 miles from the ICW entrance.
The arrival was a bit tricky. The tide was coming in, but at the dock approach was a raging river. As we got closer, it started to suck us in like a vacuum cleaner picking up dog hair. I came into the dock at a 45 degree angle, the first one of these. While we were looking over the docks I noticed how they looked ready to float away. They vaguely looked connected. But alas, they were free.
The restaurant was named Sand Dollar restaurant and marina. The staff was VERY friendly, and the food was good. We didn't have anything special, just some fried food. It was delicious. Back to the yacht, for a good nights sleep before we take off tomorrow for the ICW. Will we hit bottom yet again? No way to know unless you stay tuned!!!
Hey, if the dock is free, don't complain, the further south you get the MORE the docks of any kind are going to cost. Spent one nite on a dock with power at $230 for a friends 60' cutter.....Way to expensive for me, of course my personal boat is only 39' or 37' depending on which one we were to use......They had a great restaurant with sky hi prices, but great food. The number of sport fishing boats will tell you a lot about prices if you are concerned with that kind of stuff. That was near Peanut Island near West Palm Beach. MADE your day????? Lots of places to anchor and the further south you get the WARMER it will be. You need a small 2k generator if you plan to anchor out and keep batteries charge and use enough lites to see at nite.....
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