Week #75 - "We changed our Zipcode!"
One small step for man, one giant leap for Mullen-kind!
02/13/2026
Chris – “A New View”
Well, we finally did it. We pulled up our anchor, and headed South. If we had been traveling by car, we would have moved only about 45 minutes South… but by boat, it’s a bit more impressive feeling. We logged our first 40 nautical miles of Atlantic Ocean sailing… well, boating anyway. The wind was much lighter than we predicted that it would be, and we motored the whole way down, which was a bit of a let-down. But our diesel engine worked like a champ, and pulled an 8-hour shift of ocean-travel, with zero complaints, and that was a huge blessing. All told, I am pretty pleased with the passage.
We had planned to leave last Tuesday, from St. Mary’s, and head to Fernandina, Florida, to anchor for the night, before continuing South on Wednesday morning. Fernandina is about 45 minutes from St. Marys, and is located right next to the inlet that we would take to go out into the Atlantic. Tuesday, we did all our prep work for leaving. We parked our car at the church we have been attending (they agreed to let us store it there, which was a huge blessing), hauled fresh gasoline (for our generator/ outboard motors), and water to the boat. I added diesel to our boat’s tanks, and we fired up the engine to prep for hauling the anchor. After a few minutes, the engine suddenly died! We had not started hauling the anchor yet, thankfully, so we just stopped operations, and I started running through the possible issues, in my head… I pretty quickly remembered closing the fuel valve, while I was putting fuel in the tank, and I realized I had not opened the valve back up… we ran out of fuel. In a marine diesel engine, this means that you need to go through the engine to bleed the air out of the fuel lines, through various bleed screws, or the engine will not run. This took us an hour. I would like to speed that process up, in the future, because the idea of taking an hour to get my engine up and running while I am drifting is terrifying, but we got it done, and the engine was happy again. That hour, was the hour that we had planned to use to travel to Fernandina, though, and since we had already been running a bit behind schedule, we decided to cancel our trip to Fernandina, and just leave early the next morning, from St Marys.
We were pulling our anchor by 7:40 the next morning. The engine was happy, the sunrise was beautiful, and we were all feeling a bit jittery. Our anchor pulled up an 8’ long rotten log with it when we hauled it! That was a bit crazy, especially since we are still pulling up our anchor manually. But fortunately, it was rotten, so it was easy to break, and free our chain from. The rest of the anchor pulling went smoothly, and we rode the wind, and the current, out the inlet, turned South, and began our trek to Jacksonville. As I mentioned earlier, the wind did not really cooperate for us to turn off our engine, and sail, but the sea was relatively flat, and the ride was very smooth. There was a light rain for most of the day, and the wind that was there only served to make our wet bodies feel a little colder, so we all bundled up in waterproof layers, and stood around stamping our feet and looking cold. Even though the waves were small, a couple of the family members complained that riding inside made them feel sick, so we all hung out around the rear helm station, playing music loudly, and eating finger foods. I don’t know what I expected to see on the ocean, but there were NO other boats out there with us. We use a variety of navigation apps while we are sailing, and sometimes it looks like there are boats everywhere, but the sea was empty… granted visibility was slightly lessened by the rain, but still, we felt like we had the run of the place. It was equal parts unnerving, and totally exhilarating for me. I felt myself caught somewhere between, “I could go anywhere right now, and no one would stop me,” and, “I can’t believe no one has tried to stop me, or ask me if I am qualified to do this.” It really is the wild-west out there. Once we gave up on traveling under sail-power, we traveled a fairly straight line down the coast, to the inlet of the St John’s River. There is a lot of Military activity in that river, and along the banks, but we met very few boats, or ships in the river, on the way in. We were aiming for an anchorage along Sister’s Creek, which would have necessitated us going under a bridge. Our mast stands 64 ½” feet above the water, and as we approached the bridge, at high-tide, the marker at the opening read 65’… I fully chickened out and did NOT attempt to go under that bridge. We anchored, instead along a beach, on the other bank of the St Johns River, called Great Marsh Island. It was a beautiful night, and we were the only ones anchored in this area. Large ships, some of the largest ships I have ever seen, at least while on a sailboat, cruised up and down the river all night, rocking us with their wakes, and thrumming their huge engine noises. I set up alarms to check our anchor/position through the night, but all was quiet, and I slept well all things considered. We decided to move the following day to an anchorage out of the main river, and we are planning on spending a few days here, stocking up on some Sam’s Club, and waiting for a weather window to continue South. The huge ships in the main river are really cool, but I also felt like a little bug, camped out along an elephant trail, so we decided to move.
It is crazy how refreshing a new view is. Wednesday night, we anchored with a massive refit facility to the North of us, and a small patch of palm trees and sand, bordered by marsh to the South. The refit facility works on MASSIVE boats, and was lit all night long. We could see a huge Navy Destroyer being worked on, and a massive pleasure yacht. The palm trees to the South added just enough Florida to distract from the all-too-familiar marsh behind it. The strange ships, and boats that passed were new, and different from the type of boats we were see in Georgia, and it all worked together to give us, “we are really doing it,” vibes! Though, every time I realize that we don’t have a car anymore, I panic a little bit, but we are figuring it out. This is the new life, I guess it is time to get used to it.
We have a lot to celebrate, and a lot to look forward to. We are thankful that God has brought us through this far, and we are eagerly looking forward to what He is doing in our future. I think the anchorage we are staying at now has the potential to be really cool, but I will save the report on that for next week. Until then, take care. Thank you so much for following along with us, and for sticking with us while we have been trying to kickstart the travel portion of this sailing adventure. We are so blessed to know amazing people, and to keep meeting them along the way.
~Chris
Crystal - “Agnes Toddles”
2/12/2026 marks one year since we moved onto Agnes. When we left Montrose, we committed to the year away. It took us a long time to find a boat, and a longer time to make her seaworthy. But today, I woke up in a coastal anchorage after spending a day at sea. It finally feels like we are not pretending! Our weeks on the water in St. Marys felt a little like we were just joining a community of long-term tenants on the river; most of our neighbors had not moved for years.
One year to the day. One year ago felt like a serious blow. A year ago yesterday, we said goodbye to our 16 year old puppy. That wound was real fresh, and then we moved into a smelly, dirty, defunct boat that we had only just begun to bring life back to. So much slow steady work, so many setbacks and realignments, so many incredible unforeseen blessings in the midst. We have found people who are invested in us in the most random ways. We have been taken care of by strangers. Cheered on by people we may never even meet. We have found the type of friends that most people are just dreaming of these days.
What a year! I’m amazed with my crew. I’m amazed at how much more I have to learn. I am continually seeing God expand my understanding and expectations of Him. He is so much kinder, so much bigger and more invested in my abundant life than I ever could have dreamed up.
A year in, and it feels like we are just getting started. We have so much to figure out now. No car. No address. People did this way before all the things we consider necessities were even available, and now I realize we come from absolute savages! Anyway, we are celebrating, and we are still all in!
Do something hard. Do something that makes you nervous. Believe that God’s calling you to something good whether it feels good today or not.
~Crystal
Ellis - “We’re Boatin’ with the Big Boys Now”
This week we moved anchorages down from St. Marys GA to Jacksonville FL. Jacksonville is a much larger city than St. Marys was, and as a result, it’s much busier. Coming into the St. John’s river channel, where we’re anchored, the first thing I noticed were the gigantic boats and their accompanying rigs/docks. Right inside the channel mouth the river splits, and on one side the river goes on, and on the other side is a large man-made cove where the Naval Station Mayport is based—which is to say it was full of 500+ ft Destroyers. We’ve sailed around big ships a bunch of times before but it’s still crazy to me that people can, and have, built such humungous structures that not only float but are also fully capable of crossing an ocean. Farther up the river, right across the river from where we anchored actually, is a facility that services the destroyers by literally lifting them out of the water. By using a series of very powerful winches, they first pull the nearly 10,000 ton destroyers out of the water on a submersible platform and then they use a special system of rails to move the platform onto land. . . which is crazy. Currently the USS The Sullivans is the particular destroyer being serviced at this facility, and even from all the way across the river, it makes me feel a little bit better to see how rusty it looks! It’s not just us that have problems with the stuff.
The destroyers aren’t the biggest boats around here though. We are anchored in part of the ICW (Inter Coastal Waterway) which is a partially artificial, 3,000 mi inland channel stretching up and down the east coast which allows vessels to easily traverse the coast without having to brave the open ocean. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it much but last night (Wed evening), we all noticed a noise outside and when we looked out our windows there was this huge car ferry blocking out the entire north horizon! It was a little nerve wracking to see such a huge boat tearing by in the dark! There were another half dozen or so ships that came through in the night, and every time I’d briefly wake up to the boat rocking in their wake. This morning a particularly big container ship passed by and I was able to catch the name and do a little bit of research. The El Coquí is a 750 by 105 ft container/roll on-roll off ship with a 31 ft draft. Capable of carrying 26,500 tons, it is used for trade between Jacksonville and Puerto Rico. Fun fact: a coquí is an adorable, little-tiny yellow frog found in Puerto Rico. An ironic name for that gigantic, black brick-of-a-boat!
~Ellis
Conrad - “New Waters”
We are now in Jacksonville. I decided to write about our new anchorage a little. We ended up looking at a couple of spots, because our first spot that we had been aiming for was past a bridge, and we weren’t positive that we would quite make it under. Due to conditions (wind direction, tide, and forecasted weather) we decided to anchor in the main river beside a little beach for the night. After anchoring and unwinding for a bit from the passage, we went to the beach to explore. The beach was on a little undeveloped island that barely anyone ever came to. The shore was an interesting mix of sand, shells, and mud. For the most part the mud was not overwhelming, but mostly just made the ground kinda soft in spots. There were a lot more shells than I had expected for this far up the river, ranging from small snail shells and various little shellfish, to medium sized conchs and big clam shells, I even found a couple of shark teeth. Beyond the shore there was a big swamp area and between the two, partly on the beach, there were a few old trees. Many of these trees were dead and had fallen over, exposing their roots and basically turning into big crazy chunks of drift wood. I thought it was a pretty cool place, though there were a lot of biting gnats so it was better when we were moving. It didn’t really smell too good either, there were a bunch of dead jellyfish stranded all over on the beach.
Reading through this, it doesn’t sound like a very nice place, but I thought that it was cool to go at least once. Also while we were there we saw dolphins and a pretty good sunset.
Thanks for reading!
~Conrad
Oliver - “Bow-Riding with Dolphins”
As You know, we moved from St. Mary’s to St. John’s on Wednesday. While we were underway there was only about a one foot swell. But even that much makes a big difference. We all stayed out on deck as much as possible because we would start to feel sea sick if we went in the cabin. But, if you walk to the very front of the boat, you can stand on the wooden deck of the bowsprit. There, it gets the most wave action, but since you are in the fresh air and can see the horizon, you don’t feel seasick at all. That is my favorite spot so far for while we are underway. For the first few miles, we had a pelican following us. It must have thought that we had fish or something, but it actually ended up landing on the bow rail right in front of Ellis. Soon after it realized that we weren’t going to give it any fish, and it drifted away. Later as we were entering the St. John’s inlet, we noticed some dolphins swimming towards us. A few of us ran up to watch them, and while we were watching, they came to the bow, and hovered there for a moment, and then left. There were so many dolphins on that trip, but that was the closest they got to us. Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend!
~Oliver
Jasper - “The Bronze Colored Blankets”
Guess What!?!!?!?? We left St Marys yesterday! We woke up at the break of dawn and hoisted anchor in the misty morning rain (we were supposed to get 0.5’’ of rain). And by 7:00am we were motoring away toward the sunrise. The rain switched on and off for a while but it really got going at around lunchtime. But luckily for me and Posy we had an amazing mom who gave us two bronze colored blankets that mostly kept the rain from coming in and soaking us. But for the last hour and a half there was no rain so the wind and sunlight warmed and dried us and our blankets. It was actually really fun at some points. Now we are in the St. John’s river in Jacksonville, Florida. I think that we are staying till next Thursday, so stay tuned. See you next time!
~Jasper
Posy - “Cannonballs are floating!”
On the way to Jacksonville, we saw at least 70 cannonball jellyfish. It was pretty darn cool, and Jasper kept saying “there’s one, and another,” and so on, and so forth. Later that evening we went on an expedition to a beach that we were anchored by. There were so many cannonball jellyfish that had washed up and died but there were some that had recently washed up, and I got to save one. Anyway, this all led me to research them and so here’s what I got; their diet is mostly fish eggs, oyster larvae, and zooplankton. They basically take big gulps of water and filter out those things to eat. This is the part that makes them have an ecological role, when they eat the zooplankton it helps the nutrient cycle. They are also a big food source for endangered species. Also they can range from a tennis ball size to a volleyball size. They have many predators such as the endangered leatherback sea turtle, many types of crabs, a few different types of fish including the spade fish and butter fish, and most sea birds. Anyway, that is what I wanted to share for this week. If you would like some art I would be delighted to do some for you. Have a great weekend. See you next time!
~Posy
Have a great week! Leave us a comment! We love to hear from you guys… not because we are trying to beat the algos, we just love you guys!