Back to Sanford: Cruising Southbound on the St. Johns River & Exploring New to Us Anchorages (Crescent Lake, Mud Creek Cove)

Our final project at Lamb’s Yacht Center was replacing our front deck hatches. Our original Bomar hatches were now over 20 years old and had several parts failing, and they needed to be re-bedded to fix a leak that had developed.

We opted for replacing them instead of trying to rebuild – as it would cost about the same, and we could make some upgrades in the process. These were the parts we were awaiting for delivery, and they finally arrived – thus our reason for returning to Jacksonville after some delightful cruising along the ICW.

It was pretty quick work to get them installed.

We now have new hatches, and we added on a pull shade trim kit that gives us super convenient option for a screen or shade (or combination of both). So much easier than the annoying clip in shades that came with the boat. And, we finally can make it dark in the bedroom during the day, which makes naps much more pleasant!

Lamb’s was again awesome – and we left having had our smoothest stress free boat yard experience to date.

We made a final pump out, topped up the fuel tanks with every drop we could take on (getting diesel in Sanford can be a challenge) – and set off to return to Sanford, enjoying the marvelous St. Johns River.

This time, we made a point to hit to some new to us spots.

For all of our St. Johns River past cruises, I’ve started a new page to collect them. In time, I hope to assemble some additional resources bringing together all of our anchorages and shore advice into one place.

St. Johns River Cruising

Video Version

What.. a produced video?!?! We haven’t done one of these in a long time, but we captured so much much great footage we were inspired. Here’s a quick wrap up of the adventure:

And here’s the written version:

Doctor’s Lake & Whiteys Fish Camp

On our very first trip up river back in 2018, we aimed to make our first stop at the legendary Whiteys Fish Camp for dinner, which is accessible by water off of Doctors Lake. Which is the first lake south of Jacksonville.

On that trip, we got anchored in the middle of the lake and attempted to take our dinghy to Whiteys – only to have our engine die on us, and instead rowed back to Y-Not. We ended up doing an engine replacement after that, switching from Suzuki to Yamaha.

And each subsequent pass, we just haven’t had time at the start or end of our St. Johns trips. We decided this time, we made it a priority! This time we anchored much closer, and the dinghy made it!

It was so worth the wait and anticipation. This place is truly yummy and much larger than we anticipated.

And I was quite impressed with the healthy meal options available – I was able to stay completely on my Mediterranean Diet with no modifications (thank goodness red wine is allowable!).

Green Cove Springs

Next stop – our official ‘home’ in Green Cove Springs. We have used St. Brendan’s Isle as our domicile address and mail forwarding for over a decade now. So we always make a stop when we can.

First, lunch downtown near the city docks (which finally have a way to pay the dockage fee / $5 for the day).

Then we were invited to anchor off the home of followers Rex & Jimmie – fellow boaters and RVers. Had a lovely evening sharing a meal and lots of stories.

They also were able to solve the mystery of the Navy helicopter chasing a speed boat and doing circles around us (exciting!). Apparently the Navy films their training videos here. Super cool!

Palatka

Next up, a longer cruising day of a whole 3 hours to Palatka. Beautiful cruise along the upper river, which is wide. Saw almost no one else on the river. There may have been cold tubbing on deck while underway.

Once we arrived, we waited for a storm to pass and cool things down – and then went out for a 3.1 mile run around town (we’re always looking for places to get our 3x weekly runs in!).

Came back, got cleaned up and checked out Azalea City Brewery. Super yummy brews (including seltzer on tap) and then a yummy dinner onboard.

In the morning, we took a stroll out to Ravine State Park, which is a little over a mile from downtown.

Did you know there’s a ravine in Florida? It’s gorgeous, and the state park is lovely. With an easy paved trail around the rim, and lots of trails down into the ravine – including a suspension bridge. Our second visit, and we totally need to time a future stop for when the azaleas are in bloom – we hear it’s even more beautiful.

We’ve come to quite like our stops in downtown Palatka. Easy anchoring downtown, cute little downtown that is revitalizing and now both of the town docks are back to open.

If we needed a grocery re-stock, we could have also docked at Corky Bells up river a bit, grabbed lunch and walked across the street to a store.

Crescent Lake Side Trip

If the St. Johns River is a side trip off the ICW / Great Loop – then taking Dunns Creek into Crescent Lake is a side trip off the side trip.

And one we had never taken the time to do. So.. let’s do it!

Dunns Creek is a twisty 15 mile route just south of Palataka – it takes some very precise hand steering for a vessel our size, and navigating around many shallow spots. Thankfully, our Navionics charts were spot on and it was no problem and beautiful.

And then you are on Crescent Lake! The entrance is a touch skinny with depths around 6.5″ (we draw 4′) and then it opens up.

There’s not too many reviews out there, so we were basically winging it. We had recently visited Crescent City by van, so were somewhat familiar with the public docks and amenities around.

First up, I spotted a public waterfront park right across the street from a Winn Dixie Grocery Store.. so we plotted to see if we could get ashore. We didn’t really *need* anything. But heck – re-stocking fresh produce is always a good thing! And success, easy kayak launch beach access for the dinghy (and a broken pier if you’re willing).

And then we moved to downtown to sunrise park, with a great public dock. This gave us easy access for walking, dining and running.

We immediately headed to El Amigo – a fabulous locally owned Mexican restaurant that we had been craving since our last visit. Fresh unique dishes passed down for decades. I had ‘Irmitas’ – corn & potato dumplings with all sorts of fresh veggies. Chris has chipotle chicken. Yummmm.

We decided to next move to the far side of Crescent Lake to explore a more remote area. We choose a cove outside of Dead Lake, so that we could explore Haw Creek by dinghy.

When Jacksonville was taken by the Union in the Civil War, the Confederacy scuttled a bunch of their boats in these creeks and you can see remnants of one of them along Haw Creek. Pretty cool.

The creek meanders through Haw Creek Preserve State Park and we had researched a dock that would get us to a boardwalk – but the creek was pretty clogged up with downed trees & weeds just before that we decided to not push to get the dinghy through.

But it was a lovely adventure, and we just love secluded anchorages all to our own with rocking 5G signal.

Welaka – Mud Cove Creek

We always make a stop in Welaka on our St. Johns River trips, as we just love grabbing lunch at Shrimps R Us (which we did, setting the anchor just across from the town docks for an easy dinghy ride in).

But afterwards, we moved south over to Mud Creek Cove, where we’d have easy access to Mud Springs in the Welaka State Forest. We’ve anchored in three other locations around town in the past, and I think this is a new favorite.

A quick dinghy trip up a creek, and there’s a little dock to get ashore (fee area of just $2 per person – paid online via QR code). And then right there is a little spring fed swimming hole at a refreshing 72 degrees – perfect antidote for a hot day.

There are also miles and miles of trails – which we hit for a morning run. A spring swim was a marvelous way to cool down afterwards!

Silver Glenn Springs & Astor

Next adventure heading south on the St. Johns River – crossing Lake George! Florida’s second largest lake. It was smooth and glassy, so we ventured over to Silver Glen Springs for a swim.

Just love seeing the water turn clear under the dinghy as we head up off the lake.

Even on a Tuesday (this was last week) afternoon – it was pretty full. Lots of boats anchored to party and lots of families out cooling off on a warm day.

We got a swim & snorkel in, and returned to Y-Not in time for an afternoon storm to pop up.

We quickly weighed anchor, and put the engines in full gear to outrun it in just the nick of time. Sometimes, we really appreciate that we have a planing vessel that can go zoom (but we typically drive at hull speed to enjoy the ride, keep our wake down and conserve fuel).

Got just south of Astor to Shell Island (or as we call it ‘Party Poop Island’) for a peaceful overnight – where we picked up a stowaway.

A bat!   This is actually our third bat aboard the boat while cruising the river over the years, so we’ve learned quite a bit about securing Kiki, safely catching them and getting them outside. But this one evaded us before it found a place to sleep in the morning.

Butchers Bend

The segment of the St. Johns River between Astor and Deland is probably our favorite. You can go for miles with no sign of humans, except perhaps an occasional fishing boat.

It’s wild. It’s wonderful. It’s twisty. The wildlife is abundant.

We did a full day of cruising south just enjoying the beauty (and got the drone out for some in motion shots). We anchored part way to attend to some work calls, and then continued on to set the anchor in our favorite anchorage on the St. Johns River – Butchers Bend.

Just a few miles north of Sanford, our destination. We took a couple nights to enjoy the last of our solitude before our return ‘home’.

And of course, as soon as the sun went down we were at the ready to catch our bat friend. Chris got fully armed in heavy clothing, Kiki was locked in a bathroom and we nudged the little cutie out of his hiding spot towards an open door – where he flew away. We sure do hope he was able to find his way home back to his friends and family.

And as if to cap off a perfect cruise, nature delivered a final delight:

Back to Sanford

We arrived back to Sanford almost two weeks ago after being away for just over three months, and we’ve hit the ground running (sometimes literally) with catching up with friends and attending musicals.

While we are nomads through and through, there’s something that always feels like coming home when we arrive back here.

It’s just simply amazing after so many years on the road to arrive somewhere that we are greeted and welcomed back. Have an existing community of friends to instantly get back into the grove of hanging out with.

To have favorite restaurants & businesses where the owners know us.

Looking forward to a little bit of time here basking in that warmth this month, and hatching some new adventures ahead this fall!