The Voyage Begins

Right on schedule at 15:00 this afternoon Kite and Ringle departed our marina at Ortega Landing in order to catch the 16:15 opening of the Main Street Bridge in downtown Jacksonville. The current was favorable as we made our way downtown in the St. Johns river and it was apparent that we would arrive early. As we entered downtown, the normally open FEC railroad bridge started closing, cutting us off from the rest of downtown. We knew that a train must be coming and that the bridge would open as soon as the train passed. The time was 15:40 and trains usually are not longer than 10 minutes so we were not especially worried. We watched as a long freight train rumbled slowly across and were gratified when, 10 minutes later, we watched the last car roll towards the bridge.

But wait! Approaching from the opposite direction were the engines of another freight train on an adjacent track and they started across the bridge before the last car of the first train had cleared it. This was another long freight train and we began to worry about making the 16:15 opening of the Main Street Bridge. The last car of this new train crossed the bridge at 16:00 (exactly 10 minutes) and a couple minutes later the bridge opened to let us pass.

Fortunately the Main Street Bridge is a short quarter mile from the railroad, so we arrived with 10 minutes to spare, and we passed under its raised span at 16:17. The rest of our trip down river went smoothly and quickly, as we benefited from a strong ebb current. Our destination today is an anchorage on the east end of Blount Island, near where the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) crosses the St. Johns river. We enjoyed a view of our picturesque suspension bridge, the Dames Point Bridge, near the Jaxport shipping facility.