Alto Arrives on St. Johns River–About the River

Arrival:

Yesterday (01/06/11) Paul Sharp from Sharp Yacht Transport, Sharp Yachts Transport - Home who moves the Ranger Tugs from the factory to the sales brokers, arrived at Turner Marine in Mobile, AL to pickup the Alto for transport.  He came five days early, so we are ahead of schedule.  Alto is being moved over 8 hours to the Sanford Boat Works & Marina at the navigable beginning of the St. John's River in Florida–about 25 minutes north of Orlando.  Call Cory Sharp for any boat move, but the Sharp family specializes in Ranger Tugs; here's Cory moving two tugs at once!

On the St. Johns River we'll have 310 miles of river, although much of it below Sanford, FL is not navigable except by air boats.  Still, there are many miles of river and lakes to explore all the way up to Jacksonville where the St. Johns spills into the Atlantic Ocean and the intracoastal can be accessed.  There are many inlets and places to anchor and as the river moves 1 knot per hour, and there is no tide in the lower 2/3 of the river, it's a safe place to anchor.  I learned about the river from looking into renting a houseboat for an easy introduction to the water for my wife, Gail, who does not swim and is fearful of anything boat-like.  The Hontoon State Park is in the middle of the river.  There are loads of houseboat rentals, if you are seriously interested download a Cruising Guide & House Boat handbook here:  Holly Bluff Marina

Back to the story!  Paul Sharpe stopped and kindly loaded Alto up with diesel fuel from a gas station on the way (Alto holds 75 gallons of fuel) and dropped her in the water and the boat yard folks towed her to her assigned covered slip at the Sanford Boat Works & Marina.  Yes, that's the famous "Sanford" where that poor kid was shot in a condo complex by a local vigilante.  The marina is at the southernmost part of the navigable river.  Paul deployed the fenders and plugged her in to keep the batteries charged.  Neither Gail nor I was even present so much can be done by remote control when you have good people working on your behalf.   We had previously sent six boxes of stuff (kitchen equipment, tools, towels, bedding, etc.) via UPS asking the marina staff to put it on board.  Our plan was to keep Alto in Florida and visit as frequently as we could, and in the Spring transport the boat to our home on Cape Cod.  Cheap direct flights can be had from Boston to Orlando, and car rentals can be as low as $98 per week.

Our last sailboat was destroyed in Hurricane Bob and we eventually gave up our mooring in Cotuit Bay on Cape Cod.  Now there's a 20-25 year wait to get a mooring, so when we decided to get back into boating we needed to consider two main needs:
1.) An easy to use trawler as we don't have the energy for sailing anymore, and
2.) The largest (and most comfortable) boat we could find that was trailerable.

We already have a Ford F-350, a one-ton pickup truck; however, all Ranger Tugs (even their biggest 29 footer) can be pulled by a 3/4 ton truck, albeit a diesel engine is highly recommended.  Here's a video showing how easy it is to launch the larger Ranger 29 foot boat: The TugNuts: Launching and retrieving the R-29.

About the St. Johns River
The St. Johns River's headwaters are hard to discover.  Blue Cypress Lake (below) is the most identifiable water body at the headwaters of the St. Johns River according to the Florida Dept. of Evironmental Protection's web site.

The following map is pretty hard to see, but you can use your browsers Zoom In buttons (under the View menu on a Mac) to see a bit better.  Alto is based just south of Lake Monroe and above Lake Jessup; look for the bottom of Seminole county.  We'll be mostly between Lake Munroe and DeLand, although journeys should take us up to Lake George and beyond.  The St. Johns in not very navigable below Lake Harney and Lake Jessup is probably too shallow even for our two foot draft.



Well, today 01/15/11 we're off for our first trip to Florida, and Gail hasn't even seen Alto in person yet!  So, I'll post more after we get there.