Palatka to Moccasin Branch, anchor

The plan this morning was to continue south. We hoped to at least get to Lake George before turning around. In a normal year this would be doable. Many folks have taken the St. Johns River all the way to Sanford, off Lake Monroe.

But this wasn't a normal year.

While homes and towns in the area weren't destroyed by Hurricane Ian, the amount of water it dumped here was, well, still here. The river doesn't move it quickly. That means the water line was in some folks yards, or very close to their homes. Neither of us wanted to wake these places -- it's one thing to rock a floating dock, it's another to put water in their living rooms --  and we just didn't find it "beautiful" enough to continue at 5 knots.

Not much room for wakes in most places.

At first we went south on the river. Then we gave up. We turned down Dunns Creek hoping to get to Crescent City. Again, too many houses right on the water line. So we turned around.

The wind kicked up quite a bit from the north. Rather than beat our way back to Green Cove Springs (where I need to pick up some packages) we dropped a hook at Moccasin Branch, relatively protected from the winds. We'll get to GCS tomorrow.

Obligatory dawn photo.