Life Aboard: Traveling to St. Augustine and Cumberland Island

We left Daytona at 6:40 heading to St. Augustine. We kept seeing dark clouds then it would be sunny then dark clouds.

Traveling up the ICW.

Beautiful house along the way.

This is near Palm Coast, our friends on Silent Faith live near here.

We got here about 2 and picked up a mooring. We have been very lucky. We seem to make it look like we know what we're doing! Shay does a good job of making me look good. Pull up to the mooring, pick up the line, get it cleated off, and BAM! It's done. We traveled about 7.5 hours at 6.1kts and moved about 45nm.

These pictures show our anchorage in St. Augustine.

Margaret and Ken are looking at trawlers and there's a DeFever in St Petersburg they want to look at so, road trip! It's supposed to be a rainy day tomorrow, so we'll spend it on the road instead of the water.

We had a good trip, enjoyed seeing the boat, and didn't get rained on at all. It rained in St Pete before we got there and rained in St. Augustine before we got back! How's that for planning?

The next day, we walked around the town. It's a beautiful place with lots to see and do within walking distance. I love the different types of architecture. They have trolley rides if you need them, but we just walked around and enjoyed the breeze. Until the dark clouds and drizzles ran us back to the boat. We spent a while drying off the decks this morning and it looks like we will get to do it again after this rain. When it rains, the dust on the boat makes mud and if we don't get if off it gets tracked all over the boat.

Campus of Flagler College

Beautiful hotel

Does this look like St. Augustine? No, it looks like Mexico!

City Hall and a museum are in this old Flagler Hotel building.

We had dinner at Harry's with Rocking B and Jim and Pam Neff from Silent Faith. We were moored beside Silent Faith in Marathon. They have a condo in Palm Coast so they came up to visit us. We enjoyed spending time with them.

We stayed 4 nights in St. Augustine, then decided to head farther north.

Beautiful sunrise

See you in the fall, St. Augustine.

This beautiful boat is on the facedock at the marina. It was amazing at night with its lights on.

The Bridge of Lions is another beautiful landmark.

The cross is the world's tallest cross at 208 feet. It was placed here on the 400th anniversary of Christianity. It was placed here in 1966. It is constructed of 70 tons of stainless steel plates and packed with concrete in its lower third to prevent toppling from hurricanes. It's part of the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche. It's height is to remind everyone "of the religious beginning of our nation", according to the plaque. It is the first of the giant crosses and still the tallest. The sunrise made it look golden. It was beautiful. This year is the 450th anniversary of St. Augustine. We have seen lots of work being done on buildings. I guess they are getting ready for a celebration.

St. Augustine Lighthouse

Heading out the inlet

Rocking B is still there!

We called this the bird boat. It's looks like a shrimper, but its really just to carry all these birds! Wonder where all the bird poop goes?

These birds are waiting for their turn on the bird boat.

At first, we made plans to go Jacksonville to the free dock and spend a few days. But several people told us the area wasn't great, so we decided to bypass it and go on to Fernandina or Cumberland Island. We know there is a bridge that can have a lot of current if you come thru at the wrong time. When we looked at the tide cycle we decided it would be tricky trying to get thru at slack current and still be able to get to a good anchorage. After investigating the anchorages, currents, and weather, we decided to go outside. They were calling for 2 ft waves every 3 seconds with winds 10-15. Not great, but it seemed like the lesser of the two evils.

We left at 6:45 went out the St. Augustine inlet and headed north. The first part of the trip was ok, waves not too bad. The second part the wind go up to as much as 22kts and it was a little rougher. No major problems. Except we had trouble when we tried to pump out and Shay spent several hours working on the potty system. He thinks it's fixed. Let's cross our fingers and hope it is!

Our position coming up the coast

Trying to show the waves, but it doesn't do them justice!

Splash!

We probably saw at least 20 shrimp boats near St. Mary's Inlet. Guess they are getting stocked up for the festival. The shrimp boats look like a big flying insect sitting on the water with their wings spread out.

See, they do look like big insects sitting on the water!

These birds must be eating the scrapes.

Oh, we have something else to add to our list of things to watch out for when doing an outside passage. Boats of all sizes, markers, floating containers, crab pots, jet skies, kayakers, and now rope. Yes, rope. We were going along and all of a sudden I see rope right in front of the boat. I called for Shay and he put the throttles in idle and the engines in neutral and we watched for the line to come out the back. And it did! I've never thought about watching for floating line. Can you imagine what problems that could cause if it got around a prop or stabilizer? We don't even want to think about it. Now, wonder how many times we've come close to rope other times? When we are traveling at night we would never see it. And most of the time if you're out in the ocean, you're looking farther out. Something else to worry about now.

Fernandina

Fort Clinch located just inside the St. Mary's Inlet

We had heard there was a Shrimp Festival in Fernandina this weekend and figured the marinas and anchorages would be full. We heard on the VHF that the marinas were full at the docks and the mooring balls. So we went to Cumberland Island instead. It's a national park and a great place to spend some time.

We got anchored at 4:45. Long day. We traveled 10 hours, went 60nm and our speed was 6.0kts. We were all tired from the long day, so stayed on our boats and had a quiet evening. I haven't mentioned it but the weather is cooler here. Highs during the day lower 70's and down to mid 60's at night. We love it.

These are some of the wild horses on the island

The shoreline is beautiful

This ferry boat brings visitors to the island.

Looking toward the Naval Submarine Base- Kings Bay. It's just across from our anchorage

We had planned on going ashore the next day, but Shay helped Ken with generator problems. That's what boaters do. They help each other. But we did leave Escape to have a delicious dinner of chicken stir fry on Rocking B. That's another thing boaters do. We feed each other.