First Overnight Sailing Trip! Doctor's Lake and Green Cove Springs

I have been putting off blogging for a full month and I feel like there is no good reason for this! Just plain old fashioned laziness. We even had an exciting adventure over Memorial Day weekend and what did I write about it? ZIP (Well, I did put captions under the photos I published to Facebook but that hardly counts)

So here we go:

SAILING...and sometimes FAILING (Fake Sailing)

Day 1
Saturday evening, May 28, after a long day at the Riverside Arts Market(I make things out of plastic bags...usually I knit beach bags but I get bored and stray from that from time to time) Ryan, Romeo (dog) and I made our way out of the safety of our slip to the dangerous high seas! Okay, that's not accurate. We made our way into the river-which is not even remotely close to the ocean-where we proceeded to take roughly 5-6 hours to sail to Doctor's Lake...a 25 minute drive from where we keep our boat (I'll get to the benefits of "enjoying the journey" in a bit). It was the most windy (windy-est?) day we have encountered on the sailboat and we were both freaking out a bit. Ryan managed to freak out quietly on the inside while I had a full blown mental breakdown complete with incoherent muttering and hyperventilating (I'm a natural sailor!) After this expedition, we realized that I'm best at putting up and taking down the sails and definitely NOT steering while this is being done. I feel safer nearly being chucked from the boat than I do steering us (potentially) right into being tipped over and dying a horrible death. Lesson learned.

Back to "enjoying the journey"...sailing is slow. REALLY slow. Ryan laughed when I told him that I had previously informed a friend of mine that our sailboat went about 30 miles per hour...that seemed like a very slow speed to me and I couldn't remember exactly what it was. Ryan was happy to educate me, with the most condescending tone imaginable: At TOP SPEED, our boat goes about 5.7 knots or 6.5 mph. Top speed. A great majority of the time, we go about 2-4 mph. And if the wind dies down and we use our motor (fake sailing=failing) we could go even slower. Also, when our boat is going top speed, chances are we will be tilted so far over that the edge of the boat is underwater...this increases our speed! It also increases my likelihood of dying before my 27th birthday but it's all part of the majesty of sailing.

So while I'm all gung ho and ready for adventure, I watch as motor boats, jet skis, jon boats and old ladies in walkers just blast by us. I have been embarrassed many a time as I call to the Ortega Bridge, which has to raise to let our boat through, and watch in horror as they stop traffic for the 13 or so million years it takes for us to actually get to the bridge with our tiny motor (It's too dangerous to sail through it, so we motor until we pass it). I keep reminding myself that this is what I wanted! The silence that comes from being powered by the wind, the gentle rocking of the water, enjoying our surroundings without holding on for dear life as our boat jumps over the waves. Now our boat just kind of makes friends with the waves, hangs out, eats a sandwich, gets real comfy and we get to watch...for 5 hours. It's an adjustment.

By the time we made it to the dock of Whitey's Fish Camp, it was nearly 11 pm and while they serve food until midnight, our server informed us that it will actually only be edible for the next 15 minutes. I don't know what they would have done to our food if we hadn't ordered in that time frame, as it was, the fries were at least 2 hours old. (Having worked in a restaurant for a large portion of my professional career, I know the taste of fries that are too old to be served to paying customers, but not old enough to deter hungry servers)

While we were chatting with our server, we casually asked if "people" ever spent the night moored to their dock and she told us "I wouldn't do that. The docks are completely open to the public and drunk people could mess with you"...we thanked her for her advice for our hypothetical "friends" and after contemplating searching for a place to anchor for the night in the dark, unfamiliar area (with a mast light that apparently decided to stop working) we decided to risk it.

Fun tip: Bring blankets, sheets, pillows or at least some form of bedding with you if you plan on sleeping on your boat. Ryan's idea of beach towels serving 2 purposes because "How cold can it get?" will leave you shivering, wet and uncomfortable for the 5-6 hours of sleep you will be able to get before you just can't take it anymore. Also, it would be nice to have something to protect your head if you have a fear of spiders crawling through the port windows.

Day 2

The next morning, it was absolutely beautiful and quiet. The only other people around were probably still drunk and peacefully passed out in the two boats next to us. I walked Romeo to the shore to do his doggie business and I realized how closely I resembled a hobo as I wandered through the empty outdoor bar area to get to the grass....

Doctor's Lake was a lot more beautiful in the light of day and a lot less terrifying. The previous evening, whenever motor boats would pass us, they seemed to stick close to the shore and we were just hammering through the center of the lake because we didn't really know where we were going. We started to think that maybe they knew something that we didn't know like, for instance, about the giant lake monster that only eats people and boats in the center of the lake or, contrary to everything I've ever learned about bodies of water, it got shallow in the very center of the lake and deep on the sides. When the big light in the sky is giving you a heads up as to your surroundings, you feel a lot safer.
Bla bla bla, we sailed some more and nobody died, bla bla bla, I used an umbrella as a bimini....okay, that actually deserves some more explanation. We ordered a bimini (the thing that goes over your head to provide relief from the sun, like a massive umbrella...if you still have no idea what I'm talking about you can google it) and it didn't arrive in time for our journey, so I brought along 2 black umbrellas for a little extra SPF. For some odd reason Ryan didn't want to use his fancy bimini, so there I was, all by my crazy self with my personal umbrella bimini...sometimes Romeo would join me in my circle of shade, but he only did so after suffering as long as he could in the heat and then only with a look of great shame. Ryan did let me put my blue zebra print bandana on his head under his hat to protect his neck though, so I wasn't the only one looking slightly off balanced.
When we finally made it to Green Cove Springs, about a 30-45 minute drive from where we keep our boat, it was like noon...or maybe it was 2 or 3, I can't really be expected to keep track of time on these trips as part of the point of going on them is to not keep track of time...but we left Doctor's Lake around 6 am or 7 am, so you figure it was a long time. We pulled into the public dock, right next to a big Memorial Day festival and were pointed in the direction of the permit office because it is now $10 to moor your boat at the public dock. We are cheap, so this made our decision for us of whether or not we would spend the night there. (Once you've spent a whopping $10, you sort of feel entitled to 1 night's lodging) We made friends with the neighboring boats and were even invited onto one of them and were amazed at what an extra 6 feet on a sailboat can mean in terms of head room, a real bathroom and shower, a real kitchen and beds aplenty. I guess what they say is true: the minute you get your first sailboat, you're already thinking about what your next boat will be like. We won't upgrade for a few years, but eventually, it would be nice to have a bigger boat that we could live on or at least not hit our heads on the ceiling every 3 minutes or so.
After making some drinks, playing the ukelele and hanging out on our boat until we were hungry and tired of eating Doritos, we made our way onto shore and walked around the festival. There weren't a whole lot of people or a whole lot of vendors, but it was still a really cool experience and not one we would have normally stayed for. Later they had an outdoor concert and fireworks and the whole town seemed to come out of nowhere to take part. Reminded me of the UP and Pioneer Days, which we are going to next month! Romeo had a little doggie panic attack and leapt into the cabin during the fireworks, but we enjoyed them and felt like super old people when we went to bed after the grand finale.
After another moist evening of fitful sleep, we woke to find the vendors already starting to set up for another day of the festival...we were not too upset about missing the second day since we had seen the entire festival in about 15 minutes of walking around the day before :) The sail back to Jacksonville didn't take nearly as long without our pitstop in Doctor's Lake but there were many intervals of FAILING when there was no wind and we didn't feel like floating slowly back towards our slip. All in all, I would say our first overnight trip was a huge success and we learned more about ourselves and about our boat. We have a laundry list of things we want to do to the boat (paint the deck, fix the mast light, wood flooring and possibly walls in the cabin, etc) and we learned more about the order in which we needed to do things in order to be the most comfortable while sailing!