Flying the Coop and Landing at Pelican Roost

Wednesday, 19 December
Pelican Roost RV Park — NS Mayport, Florida
Temps: Lo 50F / Hi 66F (10C / 19C)

(Credit for the blog title goes to my friend MBZ.)

Did I give myself a day off from the blog yesterday?  You could say that — but only because it was moving day and there wasn’t much to say about it except that it was uneventful … which is the best kind of travel day.

We dragged our feet leaving Hunting Island State Park on Tuesday.  Several things led to our delayed departure … it was another great-weather morning and we wanted to enjoy it there ... we loved the park setting and had a hard time pulling up stakes … we had to complete departure day chores that were rained out when the storms came through late on Monday.  As well, we wandered the campground loops one more time, map in hand, marking off possible sites for a future stay.  Anyway, it was 11:00a by the time the tanks were dumped and we were on our way to the next campground — Pelican Roost RV Park at Naval Station (NS) Mayport near Jacksonville, Florida.

A 211 mile (338 km) drive takes us to our new home at NS Mayport.

After setting up, we headed over to the commissary (off-base) to fill up our near-empty larder, stopped at Subway (on-base) for a quick meal, and called it a night.

After a good night’s rest, we woke up to a water-view shimmering as the sun rose to our east.  We’re in site 15, one of 19 pull-through waterfront spots that can be had for $21/night ($2 more than the sites in the back row).  This is a small RV park … 49 sites in total; all 30/50A FHUs; and there is free, blazing-fast internet through Go-Wifi, which we can access from the Phaeton.  The setting is very different from Hunting Island SP — certainly, there will be no deer leaving droppings at our site as they did at HISP — but we like it so far.  It has all the makings of being a convenient home base from which to explore lots of interesting places.

Site 15 will be our home for 14 nights.

Welcome to NS Mayport, home of the Navy’s fourth fleet, reactivated in 2008.

The clubhouse organizes lots of activities for those who wish to partake, but the major pastime here is watching ships — military and cargo — traveling the St Johns River as they make their way to/from the Atlantic Ocean.  If you have a waterfront site, you don’t even have to leave home to see the ships pass (as seen in the above photo).  Today, we had several cargo vessels and three military ships go by.

Passing ships are a major source of entertainment at Pelican Roost.
(Top Right: USS Roosevelt; Bottom Left: USS Hué City)

In particular, we had the privilege of welcoming USS Hué City back from a six-month deployment during which the ship served as escort for the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.  With cheers and waves we saluted the sailors who lined the rails of the ship, which came upriver with cheery Christmas carols blaring from its loudspeakers and Santa hitching a ride!

We are amongst the first to welcome the men and women of the USS Hué City back home.
(If you look real close, you’ll find Santa in his red suit about midway on the ship.)

30 Seconds of Homecoming.
(Between the wind and our excited chatter, the audio was not useable; but this is
a version of what was blaring from the loudspeakers as the ship sailed by.
Oh, and yes, the ship really was moving that fast!)

We didn’t spend the entire day ship-watching; we did some dolphin watching, too — with our binoculars, we got a great look at a foursome playing in the water right across from us.  Pelicans were flying and diving, too.  This might be a good place for me to haul out my long lens; we’ll see.

Somewhere in there, we took care of chores.  Mui did a bit of maintenance on the trikes … they needed it after our beach rides at Hunting Island.  I, in the meantime, did several loads of laundry.  (There is free laundry with nice machines here, but I still prefer using our onboard washer and dryer even if the smaller size means more loads.)  Then it was off to Costco and Walmart for Mui while I dealt with some bookkeeping.  Yes, I know — not very exciting, but just because we’re retired it doesn’t mean that the mundane stuff magically disappears.

Doing chores in this setting is not much of a hardship!

We did manage to squeeze in a trike ride mid-afternoon.  Mui wanted to see if some stuff he had ordered from Amazon had arrived at the NS post office, so we geared up and went to find out.  No luck with the mail, but we did find one of several boardwalks that provide access to the nearby beach.  And, even better, we got to see — and even capture a halfway decent picture of — an osprey resting on an antenna before flying off to its nest with a rather big fish clutched in its claws.  Now that was an unexpected treat!

An osprey's version of "bringing home the bacon."

Not sure what we will do tomorrow.  Mui’s making noises about washing the Phaeton — allowed here at Pelican Roost — but if the weather permits, I’d like to go to the beach.  I don’t think I’ll have to twist Mui’s arm too much to convince him to join me.  But first … need to find a good tide table for the area.  Anyone know a good website for tide tables?