Beach Time with Friends

(Naval Station Mayport, Jacksonville, FL) Hi 80 Lo 64 -- It was cool, windy and rainy on Sunday, but yesterday was a perfect day to be with friends and on the beach.

Harry and Jessica, who were our next door neighbors at Adelaide Shores, are in Jacksonville visiting family on their way back to New York. Yesterday we went to pick them up at their RV park across town to bring them back to the base and spend the day with them. We wanted to take them to our favorite little seafood restaurant in the village of Mayport for lunch, but we found out they're closed on Mondays. Drat! However, Singleton's Seafood Shack was just down the street, and it was open. Their food is excellent, and we had a wonderful lunch out on the deck in the sunshine. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

Singleton's Seafood Shack

The view from the deck.

We gave them a tour of the base, ending up at our park.


We're in the back row (of three) in the park, so we don't have a direct view of the river. This is the view from our site, looking toward the river.


On Thursday we get to move to the front row, seen here from the river.

And this is the view we'll have once we make the move.

We rounded up some chairs and went down the the beach. Mayport Naval Base is located right at the mouth of the St. Johns River where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Less than a half mile from the RV park, along the rock jetty that lines each side of the river.....

... is the beautiful wide beach.

We set up our chairs and sat and enjoyed the sunshine.

Harry and Jessica.

There are a couple Navy ships in port that weren't here the day before. They must have come in overnight. We did see some civilian shipping traffic, including this large container ship.

We had a wonderful time with Harry and Jessica, and we're sad to have to take them back to their park. We'll see them again next January when they return to Adelaide Shores to the same site next to us. Safe travels guys!

There is a huge fire training facility right next door to our park. Every sailor aboard a ship has to have fire training, and this morning we got to see them in action. They start a large fire inside a big contained area that simulates a ship, and all the men and women have to put it out. It looked to us like organized chaos, with a lot of yelling. But I'm sure they knew what they were doing. It was very interesting to watch.
 

Today we did some grocery shopping at the commissary, then Jim went for a walk and I talked to our neighbors. This has always been a friendly park, everyone is very talkative. I then went down and sat on one of the benches by the river. Jim joined me when he finished his walk. While we sat there a small pleasure boat came down the river and turned toward the entrance to the Navy base. Jim commented that they better be careful or they might get a "visitor" from the base. Sure enough, it wasn't long before a Navy security boat came very fast across the harbor toward the water gate with his siren blaring. The pleasure turned around and high-tailed it out of there. We're sure glad he didn't hang around, or keep going toward the base. The security boat has a .50 cal gun mounted on it. I circled the two boats on this photo. The pleasure boat was a lot closer, but by the time I got the camera out he had already got back to the river.

I thought I'd give an update on the cataract eye surgery I had a couple months ago. I'm doing fine with glasses, but if I try to not wear them the headaches are too much. The left eye is for closeup and the right eye for distance. The only time I don't wear the glasses is for the computer. It's a strong possibility I'll have laser surgery done in November when I get back to Avon park, to make the left eye for distance too. Then I should only need glasses for reading.

That's all for today.