What a great way to start the day…..a glowing ball reflecting in the glassy water below…..

    

Today we met with longtime friends and fraternity brother, Fletcher and his wife Devany, who live in Jacksonville.  Fletcher is also comfortable on the water, having crewed on competitive sailing vessels.  After visiting and catching up on the boat, Fletcher had made dinner reservations for us at Marker 32, an upscale waterfront restaurant nearby.  We enjoyed a warm spinach salad, oysters and grouper, and a wonderful bottle of Four Graces Pinot Noir! 

    

The following day was on the docks aboard Jim and Lauren’s trawler, “Oar Knot”.  There we met more fellow loopers, Randy and Sherri, gold-loopers aboard “Priorities”.  Jim and Lauren are accompanied by their loyal ship-mate (and Karen’s new friend), Wally!

    

Our last evening in Palm Cove was spent with non-loopers, but a well-traveled Canadian couple, Rob and Mary, aboard their sailboat “Sojourn”.  Rob not only enjoys sailing, he is a sailing instructor and they shared some valuable information that we will use when we enter the Canadian waterways.

We hope to meet up again with both our new and old friends somewhere along our journey.

Our visit to Jacksonville wasn’t all fun.  While there we we biked to West Marine to pick up some cleaners, then on to Walgreen’s for a few groceries.  Thinking we might never be able to buy groceries again, the next day we biked to Publix for more groceries.  Not knowing what will be available at the next stop, loopers have a mindset of “stocking up”, actually “overstocking”!  We caught up on our paperwork and laundry and had some maintenance work done on Kara Mia.  And before the storm hit, Karen got in a little dinghy ride.

    

tomorrow on to Amelia Island…….