Tolomato

South Amelia River
N 30 35.127 W 081 27.842

The Tolomato River where we anchored last night, is a real jewel. It is the southernmost example of a salt marsh that we see on the ICW. South of here, one gets mangroves swamps. North of here, such as in Georgia and South Carolina, the salt marshes grow to mind boggling size.

In the Tolomato River, the salt marsh is no more than 1.5 miles wide. It is just as wild and just as beautiful as the bigger marshes up north. One charm of a marsh it that it is wild. There are few or no places high and dry enough to build houses along the waterfront in the marsh. This protects them from development.

In this case, the salt marsh begins about 5 miles north of Saint Augustine. As we travel north, we come to an abrupt end to overbuilt urban and second home developments, and enter an isolated world of nature, peace and quiet.

As we left this morning, in the mist we could see a fisherman in the mist. He had beached his boat, and now he was walking knee deep in his boots. He carried a hand tossed bait net. As we watched, he cast the net and drew it in. Amazing, he came up with a net full of bait fish on the first toss. Of course, those bait fish would be exactly the right species and sizes to be most appetizing to the local game fish. We expect that the fisherman would enjoy a very fruitful day fishing.

North of The Tolomato River, we come to a canal lined with vacation homes. This section is very depressing because we almost never see any sign of the residents of these expensive homes as we pass by. It is a reminder of the excess money available to the rich who can afford to put so much money in to beautiful homes, and then not use them very ofter. After that,
we come to Pablo creek, an overdeveloped area, perhaps spoiled marsh. Then we cross the Saint John's River. The Saint John's is a very big river with swift currents and even swifter big ocean going ships. We have to cross very carefully.

Across the river, we enter Sister's Creek, pass under a draw bridge, then we are back to salt marshes again. At the northern end of that region, we come to Fernandina Beach; one of our favorite stops.

Libby is scouting Rock Shrimp festivals in the area this coming weekend. If possible, we'll catch one of those.

Whenever we pass by Jacksonville, we listen to the local NPR radio station. It always surprises me to listen to the morning traffic reports. There seems to be accidents on the same streets every day. Not only that, but those are the same streets I remember from the very few times that I ever drove in Jacksonville. One hears about University Drive, and Beach Road, and Hecksur Road accidents almost every day. What gives? It occurs to me that Jacksonville is Americas largest city measured in area. There must be an awful lot of commuter traffic. Those commuters are routed on to the few major arteries that exist, and those arteries are accident prone for some reason. What a hellish place this must be for those commuters. We are sure glad to not be part of that kind of rat race any more.