Our departure from St. Augustine was not without incident. We left the mooring ball and pulled to the fuel dock so we could get our pump out and retrieve the bikes. Lauren took Frank for a walk and also get the bikes one at a time while I was attending to the business. She brought one bike back and was bringing the last one- still holding Franks leash- when a dinghy pulled up and off jumped a dog who came after Frank. Since Lauren was holding the bike and the leash she was having a hard time getting the loose dog away. Eventually the owners ran up and grabbed their dog, but it shook up Lauren and Frank. The other dog was biting at Frank and all Lauren could do was yell. I was unaware of this as it was far enough away from the fuel dock to hear the commotion. Lauren told me all about it when she got back. We loaded into the boat, had a word with the dockmaster about the people and their unleashed dog and we left. We departed about five minutes before the Bridge of Lions was set to open. The bridge opens on the hour and half hour, so we planned it just right.
Our next stop was Jim King State Park. It is in the Jacksonville area, but the city of Jacksonville is about twenty miles away up the St. John’s River. We really had no interest in going to a ‘big city’ when everyone is supposed to be staying home and everything is closed anyway. We slowly made our way up the ICW and found the state park. The park had free dock space available with a three night maximum. We pulled up the small creek to the dock and noticed two other boats there, spaced out with one on each end. We docked in the middle, far enough from either boat. The dock was nice with easy access to the park. There were a few people fishing off the walkway to the dock, so we waited until they mostly cleared out so we didn’t have to walk so close to them to take Frank. The other boats stopped by to chat but stayed well away from the boat. There was nothing around the park so it was mostly quiet except for the few people fishing. We ended up staying for four nights- one longer than ‘allowed’ but nobody was around and due to not really having anywhere to go we decided to stay that extra night. A few boats came and went in the days we were there, but everyone stayed away from each other. We had finally decided our next stop is another anchorage off of Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island which is about twenty five miles away…