Leah, Sarah & Rebekah Brannon visit

Leah, Sarah and Rebekah Brannon came for a last visit to SEASEA in Jacksonville. We headed up river to Green Cove Springs and spent the night there on the municipal docks. On the way there, Rebekah drove through what is now known as "Rebekah's Bridge" while Leah and Sarah tried to get some sun on the foredeck.

The girls went into town and explored the springs.

and saw a stingray in the clear spring water.

The next morning we headed further up river to Six Mile Creek and docked at Outback Crab Shack. We took the dinghy down and they all went exploring the creeks. They found one alligator sunning on a log and many birds and turtles.

The rest of the time was spent reading and relaxing. We had dinner at Outback Crab Shack and watched a movie on board later in the evening.

After returning to Jacksonville, they headed back to Athens and we started prepping for our departure on Friday heading north for our Great Loop Adventure.

Stacy's mother is recovering well from her surgery. Our nieces Becky and Katie Brannon and a friend Julie brought Stacy back to Jacksonville and we took the boat up to Fernandina and then to St. Mary's Georgia.

Along the way, we had dolphins travel with us and the girls did their best to get sun on the foredeck even though it was fairly cool in the wind.

We had lunch in St. Mary's and visited all of the boutiques in town.

After we returned to Jacksonville we had dinner at Clark's Fish Camp. This is a unique restaurant with the largest collection of stuffed animals I have ever seen in one place. These are all trophies taken by the owner of Clark's on various worldwide hunting expeditions.

Becky and Julie spent the next day in St. Augustine and later the girls had the opportunity to be entertained by Bill who was already getting prepared for St. Patrick's Day.

We are now starting to prepare the boat for our trip on the Great Loop. I have been performing some maintenance items and Stacy is beginning to work on our provisioning. We reconnected with some of our friends in Jacksonville and we will be sad to leave here. We are looking forward to meeting new friends and seeing many new places on our trip.