Jacksonville at Beach Marine – The Bunches Depart

Don't drink the water!

It was great having help during our passage through South Carolina and Georgia. They have the thinnest water and the most need for attention to navigation. They got their car through Hertz around 9:30 am and we went for groceries which we were sorely in need of for the rest of the trip.

I talked to the manager today of the marina, a woman, and sure enough, four pilings were installed in front of the floating fuel docks to protect the docks, not the boats! The boats can slam into the pilings but the docks are protected from damage by the boats – somehow that seems backwards but there it is. Later I learned that the water on the docks is not potable! There is some concern about using city water due to cost so they use well water and treat it themselves. The city requires them to so inform their customers. For me, I declined to use non-potable water dock water and get it in my tanks to some unknown effect. Not worth the risk. It’s the first marina I’ve stayed at with non-potable water. Of course, the non-potable water is not advertised or mentioned in their brochure. They do have city water at their fuel dock but they made no mention of it when we refueled, sounds like false advertising.

Traffic calms down at night

After the Bunches departed we had a real work day. I changed the oil and filters in both the main diesel and the genset. Ann did a huge wash. Except for the non-potable water at the dock, the rest of the marina is quite nick. There were three washers and three dryers for Ann’s use – and they all worked. The Bunches reported that the showers were clean and delivered lots of hot water. The docks are metal and not especially boat friendly but with enough fenders, they are okay. There no current or wakes in the marina so it passes on all counts except for non-potable water.

Thursday it’s off to St. Augustine and a mooring, we plan on doing a lot of exploring in the 78 degree weather down here.