Houseboating – Days 1 and 2

We have left our RV for a week to travel the St Johns River in a 54-foot houseboat. We are doing this because (1) we have talked about houseboating for a while and this was an opportunity to try it, (2) we had a timeshare week banked with RCI that was about to expire and we could exchange it for this houseboat week (though at a price), (3) it coincided with my birthday and (4) we are certifiably insane. So I, a lifelong landlubber with almost no boating experience, am now captain of a 54-foot vessel, the “Endevour”, towing a 14-foot “jon boat” with an outboard motor.

I will mention the bad stuff first, then get to the fun part.

1. It is expensive. Even after trading in our vacation week we had to plop down an additional $1100 to rent the houseboat for a week. That is $900 for training and whatnot, $100 for insurance and $100 for dogs. Actually dog, singular, because we could only bring Rusty; we had to board Grace (another $500 for a prime home). The jon boat was an additional $260. After fuel and incidentals this will run us over $2,000. Not cheap, but we had to see what it was like.
2. Leaving Grace behind was difficult. The necessity to do so arose from a weight limit of 35 pounds for dogs on board. I can understand why: getting dogs on and off the boat can be difficult once off the pier. It just isn’t a real family vacation without our “grand old lady”.
3. The nearly 4 hour drive was boring, for the first 3 hours.  Then we hit the Saturday traffic at Disney World in Orlando and it became annoying.
4. I left one bag of groceries in the car on Friday night after Jett when shopping for the trip.  She discovered the bag, fortunately, before we left.  But as it was a bag of meat it was a total loss and the 4 hour trip became much longer because it was filled with Jett’s how-could-you-do-that’s.

Now the good stuff from Saturday, when we got there, had dinner out and slept on the boat, and Sunday, our first day on the river.

1. We had a very nice meal at a local restaurant right on the St Johns River, the Shady Oak. I had fried ponga, whatever that is (some kind of fish) and Jett had fried green tomatoes and fried cod bites.  The tomatoes were mediocre but the rest was very good and the draft Rolling Rock was $1 for a mug.  The local “flavor” was… interesting.  We were surrounded by elderly bikers.
2. The houseboat is quite comfortable.  It has two real bedrooms, a bath, a kitchen and a living room with a futon.  It is much like living in our RV, except for the marine head, which is a bit more complicated than our simple RV toilet.  But it works and has unlimited capacity.  The water and the fuel are limited, of course, but generous enough to not be a concern for a week.
3. It is a rush to be called “Captain”. A half-hour into our cruise we had to call a drawbridge operator to request that the bridge be opened. That was a first for me – to have a drawbridge open at my request – and to be called “Captain” on the radio, for all the world to hear, was pretty cool.
4. I think I am a natural when it comes to boats. My first attempt at docking went smooth as silk. The instructor said it was the best first attempt he had seen in weeks. Maybe I missed my calling in the Navy.
5. The wildlife along the river on Sunday was very interesting. Lots and lots of cranes, egrets, hawks and vultures (who did not look at us like we were their next meal). Turtles and some alligators. I am sure we will see manatees soon.
6. There is something pretty cool about pointing the houseboat straight ahead, checking for traffic (very little), the leaving the captain’s chair to go get a snack. At 5 mph danger doesn’t approach very quickly.
7. We found a great place to put in for the night.  Our own private island.

After my training (which took about an hour) Sunday morning, we were off. Only to return 15 minutes later because we had forgotten to hook up the jon boat. So I got a second chance to dock (also successful, though not quite as smooth). Then the drawbridge, followed soon thereafter by some practice tying up to trees on shore. That was a little awkward, but I accomplished it. We stayed tied to an overhanging branch for about 45 minutes while we had lunch.

We had two little adventures along the way. First, one of our onboard CO detectors went off about an hour into the trip, for no apparent reason. I had to call the marina on the ship-to-shore radio to get advice from the engineer. Rebooting it seems to have solved the problem, after I did it several times and then tightened the internal electrical connection.

Second, I just about ran aground once. I was cruising along on the right side of the channel in typical 12-to-17 foot depths when suddenly the clearance dropped to 5 feet, then 4, then 3. The houseboat requires 3 feet of water, so I had a moment of panic. But before I could do anything (it doesn’t exactly stop on a dime), the depth jumped back up to 8 feet. I was concerned that perhaps the sand bar (or whatever it was) might have caught the propeller ($22 per blade), but later inspection showed no damage.

Docking at the little island near Astor was a bit nerve-wracking. We did it very slowly, checking the depth constantly, but had no problem getting the nose touching the little beach. I swung the stern in, tied the boat bow and stern and hopped off to explore, with Rusty’s eager assistance. It didn’t take long because the island was perhaps 100 feet across and 200 feet wide. But beautiful. I felt like Robinson Crusoe. There was evidence of previous camping on the island – a campfire site and a pole that was clearly used to make a lean-to. This was confirmed when we were visited by the local river police that evening who saw us docked there and just wanted to make sure that a squatter that he had run off recently had not returned.

The generator shut itself down shortly after we arrived. I figured it was due to our starboard-side docking position, where the stern was sitting in weeds, possibly clogging the intake for the generator’s cooling water. I was going to back out and come back in for a bow docking, but Jett convinced me that I could just manually reposition the boat. So I untied it, pushed the stern out, then used the bow rope to pull it over to where we wanted it. It worked! Pushing a 54-foot boat around made me feel like Hercules.

We had a nice meal (cooked inside because it was very chilly), watched TV and played cards. We shut off the generator and retired to bed at midnight. With the generator off our environment became very dark. And very quiet. Eerie.

But we slept well.

More about our private island tomorrow.