Category Archives: Cruising Guide

Information for other cruising boats. Our experiences finding places to anchor, dealing with officials, provisions, etc.

Sightseeing in Downtown Jacksonville, Florida, USA

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Saturday, May 9 — This morning, the clouds were so thick and dark that it felt ominous out. Eric rinsed down boat and set up the new power cords. We went to lunch at a Japanese restaurant called Sushi Bear, located about a mile away. We noted that it was in the same shopping center as West Marine. The food was good, and it was good value for the money.

While we were in the restaurant, Eric’s watch notified him that rain would start in 10-minutes. And it did start exactly in exactly 10-minutes. After we finished eating, his watch said that rain would now stop for the rest of the day. It didn’t stop as promised, but having faith in the weather app, we drove downtown via surface streets. The area we drove through was very pretty, predominately made up of large, older, stately homes. We stopped at a small commercial strip mall so Eric and Keith could get custard at a place called Whit’s Frozen Custard. They both liked their custard.

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Settling In and Exploring Jacksonville, Florida, USA

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The sunrise on Thursday, May 7 was blocked by low atmospheric clouds. Also note the sailboat to the left was the one we were complaining about yesterday. It didn’t look that close in this photo, but it was close enough that it made pulling into our slip more challenging.

Eric went to the marina office as soon as it opened to ask if we could move to an empty spot three slips away because it was dredged deeper than the slip we were currently in. The dock master confessed to Eric that he’d only been on the job for a few days and said he hadn’t realized that the slip we were in wasn’t dredged as deep as the slips farther away from the estuary. He asked for a screenshot of the chart that showed the depth of the slips. The dock master said yes to moving. We waited until high tide, which was at 1300.

Outside, It felt like Southern California during the Santa Ana winds. The temperature was 91 degrees Fahrenheit, but it actually didn’t feel nearly as hot because there were strong, dry winds. And, like Southern California during Santa Ana winds, there were fires. In the morning, it smelled like chemicals were burning, so we shut ourselves up in the boat and ran the AC to filter out the contaminated air while we did our normal routine of school and boat chores.

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Welcome to Jacksonville, Florida, USA

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Wednesday, May 6 — We arrived to entrance of the St. John’s River as the sun was coming up, so we had good visibility for entering (marked by purple dot).

A big tanker also arrived at the same time we did, so we changed course to be behind him. The ride along the river was nice — it was wide and calm. There wasn’t much traffic. We passed another tanker and a couple of tugs on their way out.

The river meandered east and then turned south, where it widened out even more. We passed a small commercial port.

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Passage from North Palm Beach, Floria to Port Canaveral, Florida, USA

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Friday, May 1, 2026 continued… They took the straps off, then we backed out of the slip and headed south down the ICW. Thankfully we only had to wait 7-minutes for the first bridge to open.

As we feared, the ICW was busy on a Friday afternoon. Lots of speed boats zoomed by and several tiny boats came terrifyingly close to us, but now we’re jaded and don’t freak out when the boats get close like we used to. We were pleased to report that the ride to the Lake Worth inlet was uneventful.

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Eric’s Time in North Palm Beach/Christi and Keith’s Time in San Diego

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Thursday, April 30 — As we’ve already reported, Kosmos was hauled out on Monday, April 13 to have assorted work done, mostly preventative maintenance. We’ll do a complete write up of the work done in a separate post. This is just a quick summary of how Christi, Eric and Keith spent their time while Kosmos was out of the water.

Eric spent the majority of the days onboard Kosmos. Each day, he looked at what was scheduled to be done and helped clear spaces for the workers, then put everything back away once they were done. He monitored the work that was being done and helped as much as was viable. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, Eric was frustrated that he’d hurt his back and was unable to do as much boat work himself as he would have preferred. He began pursuing care. He visited a doctor and had tests run. Once he had an understanding of what the issue was, he began trying some strategies to help facilitate healing.

He tried a couple of new restaurants. One was a pizza place called DeSanos, which had real Italian thin crust pizzas, that he really liked. He also tried a breakfast restaurant called Sarah’s Cafe, located in the same shopping center as Doris and West Marine. Sarah’s was not bad, but he preferred Berries & More.

Christi and Keith flew to San Diego on April 16. Leaving Palm Beach.

Landing in San Diego

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