Flying to Iceland

Tuesday, May 12, 2026 — On Sunday, Eric spent the morning getting the boat ready to be left for 3-weeks. He added more lines, so we had eight lines in total and should be good to go if a freak windstorm blows in. He switched the power to inverter bypass. He also took out the dinghy motor and tested it – it still wasn’t working.

We normally don’t do school on Sundays, but since we weren’t going to be doing school on the trip, Christi and Keith did a lot of school work. Christi also did laundry and made creative meals with the remaining ingredients onboard that wouldn’t last the 3-weeks we’d be gone. We all packed for the trip.

The boys didn’t remember it was Mother’s Day until late morning. Since there hadn’t been enough food left to fully satisfy everyone for dinner, we went to The Loop to supplement the meal. This was the sunset.

Yesterday, in addition to another mega school day, we puttered around the boat getting things organized for our trip. One of the things we did was flush out the sink. Several little jellyfish went to the through hull where the sink was draining into the river. We assumed they were gobbling up the morsels. 

We had a belated Mother’s Day celebration at Longhorn Steakhouse, located in the Ortega shopping center.

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Sightseeing in Downtown Jacksonville, Florida, USA

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

The sunrise on Thursday, May 7 was blocked by low atmospheric clouds

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

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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Driving Through Cocoa Beach, Florida and Passage to Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Monday, May 4, 2026 continued… As we left Kennedy Space Center, we discussed a dinner plan. We’d liked the food at Rising Tide so much that we decided to go back again tonight. It was another great meal, and with the happy hour specials, it was great value for the money. They had some really yummy mocktails, too.

Eric and Christi wanted to take advantage of the car to do more sightseeing, but Keith wanted to go back to Kosmos and talk to his friends online. Eric and Christi dropped Keith off, then took a drive south to Cocoa Beach to go to the famous pier.

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