Pulled the anchor up this morning. Tom ran us aground twice in the Cumberland narrows. I warned him about the shoaling, but it was hard to see the markers with the sun blasting in our eyes. The magenta ICW line on the gps made it even worse as it took us right into the shoaling. My phone was dead and couldn’t help us like it normally does with the channel markers. We got to St Mary’s and he ran aground again.

It was very hard for me to help navigate because the waterway guide for Florida is from 2011 and from a different company that isn’t user friendly at all. . I didn’t have an up to date NOAA charts with out my phone and the navigation app I use.

The current was working in our favor and we averaged about 8-9 knots. I had a gut feeling to book a marina in Jacksonville beach Florida. The anchorage there did not look very protected on the map I looked at last night and it recommended two anchors. We would’ve had to pull up by hand in a wicked current. I insisted that we stay at a marina tonight and offered to pay for it.

When we got into Jacksonville we saw a war ship. I’ve never seen one in real life. I don’t think the officer guarding the war ship liked me taking a picture because he followed us for a little bit. It freaked me out and Tom said it’s because I took pictures, but I don’t see how that would be a problem. We didn’t get pulled over anyways so I don’t know why the guy followed us and then went back.

When we started pulling into our marina Tom ran us aground. The channel was poorly marked. He was able to back out and then the steering we worked so hard to fix broke again. The cable popped off from twisting the helm too hard and we had to drop the anchor in the middle of the ICW. It was an absolute nightmare. Tow boat US had to come tow us to the marina.

I was questioning whether or not I wanted to complete this trip, but I’ve made it this far. I don’t want to let Tom down. We are going to have to stay at this Marina for a couple days. Rich is going to have to fix the steering with Tom. I told him to bring some nasty clothes.

We settled into the marina. It was nice to take a shower after being anchored out every night for almost a week. We went to a nice restaurant for dinner. I had scallops and Tom had a steak. I’m exhausted, sore and going to bed.