Day 306: Leaving Cumberland

Plum Orchard to Jacksonville free dock (Sisters Creek), Jacksonville, FL (docked)

November 19, 2022

It’s definitely autumn! When we are at anchor, we don’t have heat at night so it can get chilly. It’s great snuggling and sleeping, though. This morning it was 56 degrees on Lailia.

Lailia is small, so we can heat her up quickly. The propane heater works, but so does baking, which means I have a good excuse for making apple cinnamon bread.

The bird tree was not yet filled with birds this morning, maybe because it was early, maybe because it was cloudy, or maybe because the wading birds are having breakfast while the tide is low.

The weather was so perfect for walking on the trail yesterday but today it’s pretty overcast. When it’s like this, the cockpit doesn’t warm up the way it does when the sun’s on it.

Occasionally, we’d see the sun and the cockpit would get toasty. A few minutes later, it would be cloudy and cool again. I sighed a lot.

There’s a pretty strong current around this dock that had one space left. Once again, the boating community showed how strong it is. Other boaters showed up to grab lines as John steered Lailia in. One couple, docked behind us, sailed here from Sweden! They’re badass, true mariners, for sure.

We’ll head to St. Augustine in the morning; Lailia will be docked in a marina there and we will rent a car so we can have Thanksgiving with our sons and meet Kevin’s girlfriend’s family. John and I are really looking forward to hugging our boys!