{"id":25114,"date":"2026-09-23T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/?p=25114"},"modified":"2026-09-23T13:36:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T13:36:56","slug":"settling-in-and-exploring-jacksonville-florida-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/2026\/09\/23\/settling-in-and-exploring-jacksonville-florida-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Settling In and Exploring Jacksonville, Florida, USA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The sunrise on Thursday, May 7 was blocked by low atmospheric clouds<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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<\/a>. The dock master confessed to Eric that he’d only been on the job for a few days and said he hadn\u2019t realized that the slip we were in wasn\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Moving slips was a little bit tricky for the same reasons as yesterday,<\/a> but it went fine. Again, our neighbors came out to help with tying up. While this slip was deeper, it was still barely deep enough at normal low-tide, which meant we may be grounded at extra low tides. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1700, the chemical smell was gone, though the fire smell was still strong. And, thanks to all the smoke in the air, the air quality was not good. Eric and Christi were both feeling like they really needed to walk around on dry land and were anxious to explore the area, so they decided brave the smoke. Keith decided to stay aboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christi and Eric walked over to the Ortega Shopping Center, which was only .3 miles away from the marina. The shopping center was a sprawling one-story strip mall that had many of the usual chains: a Publix grocery store, Ulta beauty supplies, Chick-Fil-A, Panda Express, KFC, 5 Guys, CVS, and much more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They stopped at Cold Stone and got some ice cream, which happened to be located close to where they’d entered the shopping center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then they walked around the complex to scope out the shops. There were a few restaurants that looked like they may be Mom & Pops, so we’d try them in the near future. There were a disconcerting number of vacant shops. There were probably as many — or maybe more — vacant stores than occupied. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After scoping it out, they determined that we’d need to rent a car. While there was enough within walking distance where we could get by okay without a car, we’d be unhappy with how limited our choices were. Jacksonville was the largest city by land area in the continental United States, covering approximately 874 square miles. One of the reasons we had chosen it was because it had just about every amenity we wanted, but those amenities were spaced far apart. It didn’t look like there was much of a public transit system and, given the distances, ride shares would probably cost more than a daily car rental rate would. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once they’d seen the shopping center, they headed back to the boat. Later in the afternoon, we saw a freight Amtrack train go by. We thought Amtrak only had passenger trains, not freight. We learned something new! The sunset was mostly blocked by clouds. The little bit of light that we could see was fiery red from the smoke. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday morning, we were awoken at 0545 by an explosion that sounded like a cannon being fired<\/a>. We ran outside and saw nothing abnormal, and we had no idea where the sound came from. The sky was socked in with clouds with a slight on-and-off drizzle. It still smelled like smoke and the air quality was still unhealthy. Thanks to the clouds, there was no sunrise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Christi and Keith did school, Eric went out and rented a car. In the afternoon, we drove to REI to buy Keith warm clothes and sturdy shoes for our upcoming airplane trip to Iceland. When Christi went to San Diego<\/a>, she had brought back appropriate clothing for her and Eric, but Keith had outgrown all his cold weather gear. Warm clothing was outrageously expensive! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

REI happened to be next to a big West Marine, so Eric stopped by West Marine to pick up a new power cord. There was a small West Marine about a mile away from the marina, but Eric wanted to get it here because he doubted the small store would stock it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After we returned, we went over to Port 32 to visit a couple other families. It was located about a quarter mile to the northeast, on the other side of the condo that we’d posted a photo of yesterday<\/a>. We could have walked, but it was hot, so we drove. We’d met one of the families when we were in Panama<\/a>. The parents said the kids were at the library. We’d met the other family in Warderick Wells on Christmas.<\/a> They were available, and we visited with them for about an hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we were returning to Kosmos, a neighbor that we hadn’t met yet was out on the dock. She introduced herself and said she was having a get together and invited us over. This was one of the friendliest docks we\u2019ve ever been on. Everyone has been eager to come say hi and offer to help us. We think we’re going to like it here. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,9,403,1,2,397],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruising-guide","category-cruising-life","category-florida","category-general","category-northamerica","category-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25114"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25149,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25114\/revisions\/25149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}