Jacksonville to Jacksonville

There are 23 cities named Jacksonville in the USA, I have now slept in 2 of them. Our trip from Jacksonville to Jacksonville took 2 hours. The weather was good and I was going to complain about the headwind given that I was East bound but it wasn’t too bad. I actually used 2 gallons less than I had planned.

The flight was sort of boring. Without weather to worry about, and a route that I had flown most of many times before, it was a simple matter of flying up the coast and making a slight right. The initial climb was slower than I liked because of crossing traffic but we were soon at 9000 scooting along at 212 mph true airspeed. The controllers tried to be helpful by giving us direct but that involves too much water, even with a twin. We flew to CATHY before heading direct.

Most of the flight had enough clouds below to make it hard to see the ground. We did notice lots of freighters parked off Savannah. Reminder, do your holiday shopping early. It cleared around Myrtle beach and sliding past Wilmington, we spotted our runway 30 miles out. We had been flying a heading of 52 degrees and we landed runway 5 so in a sense we flew a 250 miles straight in final.

The airport has air carrier traffic but other than one other small plane departing, we had the place to ourselves. Skyport is the FBO and they had 2 people meet us. One parked and fueled, one gave us cold water, brought our car and made sure we filled out their arrival form. Most places just want your cell number, I think they would have taken a full medical history if they could.

All kidding aside, it’s a really nice facility and the staff were friendly and efficient. Once fueled we headed out and dropped by our hotel to drop our stuff and grab a bite. Our next destination was Surf City. We came for the Outer Banks and Surf City is technically South of them but we thought it would be fun.

With afternoon traffic, who knew Jacksonville, NC had traffic, it was a bit of a drive and we pulled into the Beach Parking at 5:01. We looked at the sign to determine how to pay for parking and realized we lucked out. You must pay for parking from April 1 to October 15 from 9 AM to 5 PM. Somehow we arrived 1 minute after they stopped charging for the season.

We headed down to the Beach to look around. There is a large fishing pier which we decided to explore. You have to pay $10 per pole but you can look for $1 per person. Half goes to upkeep the beach and your entrance is good for 2 days.

We walked the pier and saw lots of poles but no fish at first. At the end of the pier we found the serious fishermen and started to see some fish come in. The main catch seemed to be mackerel about 12-14 inches long. The consensus was that they are quite tasty with a mild flavor.

The fishermen were quite nice and we enjoyed chatting and taking pictures. The ones at the very end had a complex setup. They had cast out anchor lines far from the pier and used them to set bait by sliding a separate line down the main one. This allowed them to have several lines off one master line. While technically cool, we never saw them catch a fish.  The gentleman below was showing off his catch when it decided to make a break but was quickly recaptured.

After we were fished out, we wandered the beach a bit and then thought about food. We didn’t quite want dinner yet so we found ice cream instead. I went with soft serve which is unusual for me but was quite good. The sun was setting so we packed up and drove North through North topsail Beach and then back to the mainland.

After a quick dinner, we settled down for the night. This is a bit of an odd trip. We have no real purpose other than to get away and relax. Our first 2 destinations are places I once intended to drop by and had cancelled because of weather. Our other destinations have their own stories which I’ll write about later.