Underway on schedule Yep, on schedule or even a bit ahead because we eased out past seeping boaters at 3:30. Want to get to the fuel docks at Fernandina before close of business today. The hitch in the scheduling was the absence of a trip to the Bahamas. We were due back at Green Cove Springs mid May for scheduled boat and personal maintenance. That’s done. Engines repaired. Now we put a full day’s test run under our belt, thoroughly check things out and expect to punch out tomorrow headed offshore to Beaufort, NC and on to the Chesapeake.

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It’s Monday. Time for weekend warriors to use their morning caffeine fix to gear up for work. Even us retired has beens go back to work on boat projects. Boats get pulled. Engine technicians arrive to troubleshoot issues. The country song may argue that it’s five o’clock somewhere but right now it’s Monday morning everywhere.

That’s OK because so many around here had a glorious weekend to mess around with boats or whatever. The Redneck Yacht Club was out in force – for real folks. That aint my prejudice showing. The Redneck Yacht Club exists.

The local sailing club of note, The Rudder Club, held its annual long distance race. New Englanders may want to campare this event with the Labor Day round the island race so many clubs hold to mark the end of the sailing season. Maybe May Day is the end of sailing season on the St Johns River. Can’t image being in a small boat doing a long distance race in July. Brutal. But for this weekend - sun and light winds and, we hope, good racing. We had good shooting.

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Yep, summertime is here – down here in Florida. Temperature is headed into the low nineties. Wall to wall fry-an-egg sunshine and it’s a big sun down here. Don’t believe me? Just come down here and stand on a dock or on a sidewalk and just look around middle of the day. I will even let you keep your sunglasses. Big sun.
Kids, families and Saturday afternoon drinkers were all out along Black Creek yesterday afternoon. Kids have taken over at least a dozen trees like the one Dee captured. Many are rigged with permanent ropes for swinging. So a kid could climb to the top and drop straight or do back flips or just swing way out to nowhere & drop. The hanging ropes present a bit of a challenge as a really good swing rope hangs out away from the launching limb. The solution is simple: station a boat off to one side and have a person with long boat pole retrieve & manage the swing rope.

And a good time was had by all.

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