Jacksonville–Days One, Two –Joni arrives!

We docked at Jacksonville Naval Air Station Marina (Mulberry Cove Marina) around 11 AM. The dockhand who met us was so cheerful and welcoming – not even taking the tip I always offer when we have assistance.  He said the only tip he wanted was for us to have a great time.

The Good Life’s slip – E-11

We were quite lucky to get a slip here as most are turned away.  They had a lot of damage from the hurricane that they are still trying to fix.  One dock is completely unsafe and a second one unusable.  The remaining two have very few slips with power and there is a water leak somewhere, so they only turn on the water when you request it.  They discourage liveaboards and most transients, but at $10 a night, we were very pleased they accepted us.  I was happy to see private bathrooms.  Many marinas have stall showers with partial doors or curtains.  We walked around the area, but it was quite warm with little or no shade so we went back to the boat to finish preparing for Joni.  We got the linens out of the V-Berth storage and let them air out.  The last several days I have been polishing all the woodwork on the boat so it shines for her. On Saturday Bob picked up the rental car.  Enterprise usually picks him up at the marina, but since we are on base he had to walk to the gate – quite a hike!  Luckily the driver was retired military and met Bob part way.  We went shopping at the commissary and picked up tickets for our tour of St. Augustine.  We get a discount for military. We did all our laundry for FREE at the RV park.  8 very nice washers and dryers (4 of each). The camp host said we were lucky to come on Saturday as Sunday was usually a zoo.  We remembered that too late the next Sunday! We had a quick lunch at the food court in the Exchange and listened to the live music provided!  Very nice.  We got to the airport 30 minutes early so hung out in the very comfortable USO lounge near baggage claim where we met Joni right on time.  We stopped for dinner on the way back to the boat.  We found a Mexican restaurant that had good reviews but we weren’t impressed.  We finally got back to the marina and introduced Joni to our new home.

We sat on the fly bridge and had a great “girl talk”


She hadn’t slept well the night before so she got a fairly good night’s sleep (with ear plugs).  Our first overnight guest!  We were thrilled!
Even the sunset gave her a gift – although she thought it was a lot prettier before she took her rose colored sunglasses off .


Sunday – St. Augustine!

Docked at Mulberry Cove Marina, Jacksonville NAS – April 27-May 7, 2018 – Joni’s visit