Jacksonville to Ft. George River

 All systems were GO on Friday the 13th, so we left Lamb's Yacht Center and headed down the St. John's River. In a short while we had a tug in front of us and a freighter a good distance behind us...when the US Coast Guard came toward us...with a man at the machine gun in the bow! We figured they were going to board us, but just told us to slow down and keep going that speed until we came to overhead wires down river. A few minutes later we heard 5 LOUD blasts behind us...the freighter was obviously going faster than we were told to go...and was actually closer than this picture shows. We turned to starboard and even though we weren't quite to the wires, we went faster.  After that, we had an uneventful ride to Ft. George River, where we anchored off the Kingsley Plantation, owned by the National Parks. 

The wind was blowing 15 to 20 knots so we set our anchor alarm to let us know if the anchor started to drag. I also kept the Track on and we could see how the boat was moving back and forth as the tide was changing. 

On Saturday morning we took a tour of the historic plantation house, the last one standing in the state of Florida. We learned about how Mr. Kingsley made a fortune on slave trade and sea island cotton. He married a slave who he then freed. Under the Spanish rule at the time, freed black slaves had full rights as citizens so Anna owned her own plantation and had her own slaves. But when the English took over Florida, freed black slaves were not recognized. Before he died, Kingsley took his wife and children 
to Haiti where they would be "free" citizens.