St. Augustine to Fernandina Beach

Finally, a good Internet connection for downloading photos and enough time to write have converged at the same point in time and space!  I truly enjoy writing the blog, but it takes a lot of time not only to write but to download the photos because usually the connection gets dropped a few times.  I’ve learned to write in Word, then copy and paste.  Also I’ve learned if I have a strong connection, which is rare, I download a lot of photos which I can cherry pick later.  It feels good to get caught up again.



On June 24, we left Harbor Town Marina at Fort Pierce for an overnight trip to St. Augustine, about 170 nautical miles to the north northwest.  Even though we are heading north up the coast of Florida, we are traveling west, as well.  A local told us that Fernandina Beach was the westernmost coastal town on the East Coast and it looks that way on the charts.  For several hours, we paralleled a squall line that hovered over the Gulf Stream many miles to the east of us.  The storm cells must have been sucking the wind out of our area as we had virtually none, so the motor was on the entire 28-hour trip.  The good news is that other than a few spits and spurts, we had no squalls and, better yet, no lightning near us.  Also the seas were calm in spite of the nearby storms so the sail did not flop too much and probably caught what little wind there was to give us a slight push.  Sometimes a boring motor-sail trip is good.  We were thankful to have covered so many miles. 

 

Captain Dave, ready for sunshine or squalls

We'd heard that the inlet to St. Augustine is a little tricky.  In fact, the outer eight or so red and green channel markers are not shown on the charts because they often need to be moved due to the shifting shoals.  But we'd called Towboat US as well as the Municipal Marina beforehand to get local information - favor the red side and stay far away from green #5 - on how to approach the harbor, and we had a smooth entry. 

Entering the St. Augustine Harbor with the fort and city as seen from the water

  



Beautiful St. Augustine just before we entered the mooring field

We picked up a mooring ball at the Municipal Marina at 11:30 and, even though we were  tired, by 12:00 were on the free launch (water taxi), which runs every two hours during the day between the mooring field and the Municipal dock. A Cuban cafe was recommended to us for lunch. We had the chicken wrap and green salad special, including a glass of wine, which doesn't sound that special except that the cilantro sauce for the wrap and the basil salad dressing were dynamite!
Running on little sleep, the wine just about knocked us out; still we walked around this beautiful city that we’d visited two and a half years ago just before we bought Wayward Wind.  We caught the 4:00 launch back to the boat and went to bed early that night.

 

We awoke the next morning eager to move on, so we dropped the mooring ball, bound for Fernandina Beach about 40 miles north northwest.  We knew there would be thunderstorms over the land and again over the Gulf Stream and we were hoping they’d leave a wide clear path for us in between, which they did.  The storms caused flukey winds that clocked around from south to west to north to east.  Fortunately we were able to get some sailing in but mostly motor-sailed because the winds were just too light.  But I’ll tell you, for about three hours we paralleled the storms five miles west of us as they moved north from Jacksonville to Fernandina Beach.  I lost count of how many bolts of lightning we saw against the black sky.  I told Dave that I was hoping that the storms would burn themselves out by the time we would turn west into the St. Mary’s inlet so that it would be nice and sunny when we arrived.  And they pretty much did just that.

Just south of the St. Mary’s channel, we encountered a fleet of fishing trawlers that had their long fishing arms out dragging nets behind.  It was a bit intimidating because they constantly changed direction, but we held our steady course and managed to avoid having to go several miles out of our way to go around the entire fleet. 

 

Cannons of Fort Clinch pointed at us to welcome us to the St. Mary's inlet

Ironically the best sailing of the day was right in the St. Mary’s inlet – 20 knots on a beam reach with one reef in for about three miles.  We were flying!  It was moving to be heading back into the St. Mary’s sound on the Florida/Georgia border where a little over two years ago we cut our teeth with Wayward Wind – a returning home, of sorts.  At 7:00pm, we picked up a mooring ball at the Fernandina Harbor Marina, then dinghied in to register and take a nostalgic walk through town.  Nice to be back.

 

Lovely architecture of Fernandina Beach Post Office

This home is almost a mirror image of our D St. home in Petaluma,
minus the wrap-around porch.

When we were here before, we’d made the acquaintance of a nice couple, Kent and Vicki McKee, who own a Beneteau sailboat that is docked at Tiger Point Marina.  We gave them a call and spoke with Kent on the phone.  We had a nice chat.  Kent is a pilot who, for many years, was the chief pilot for the State of Georgia.  He said that recently he has been flying to Haiti, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.  We mentioned that we sponsor two children in the DR and visited them while we were there.  He asked through which organization.  We told him, Childrens International, and he laughed.  The two brothers for whom he now flies are on the board of directors for Childrens International. In fact, one of them is Dan Phelan.  We met our kids at the Dan Phelan Activity Center in Santo Domingo.  What a coincidence!  Kent asked me to write an email about our experience and impressions of the organization that he would forward to Dan and Larry Phelan.

On Thursday, we dinghied over to Tiger Point Marina, where we stayed aboard Wayward Wind for the first time on a freezing cold night in early February, 2011 and stayed for the following four months preparing the boat and ourselves for our journey.  We visited with Bill Cavanaugh, the owner of the marina, and his wife, Ann.  Bill had been so supportive of us when we were green with WW.  We could never have gone off without the help of Bill and his mechanics, Walt and Dave.  We told Bill that we’d been as far north as Annapolis and as far south as Granada.  He was genuinely pleased.  He told us that he’s seen a lot of people come to the marina and spend months or even years preparing their boat and, for one reason or another, never leave the dock or end up having to sell their boat before venturing off.  He said, “But you two actually did it!  You made my day.”  We had a nice time catching up.  We missed seeing the office manager, Jackie, who was out due to back surgery.  I used to bring various samples of dark chocolate to give her a little boost in the afternoons.  This time I left a nice dark chocolate bar with a note for her.  She also was a gem to us.  After we visited with Bill and Ann, we walked around Old Fernandina, the original part of the city with its very old homes where Dave and I would take our evening walks.  We have fond memories of Tiger Point Marina and our time in Fernandina Beach. 

Old Fernandina home seen in the Pippi Longstocking movie

The past two days, we’ve rested and wandered around Fernandina.  Yesterday we rented bikes and rode to the grocery store.  Bought some Georgia peaches, pears, apricots – Yum!  The thunder storm came and we were able to ride to shelter between downpours.  Riding on the backstreets, racing before the storm, brought back not only memories, but sensations from my childhood.  So exciting. We should do this more often. 

Dave making a new friend

Lovely screened in porch and Grandmother Oak of this Grand Dame

Today we visited the Saturday morning Farmers Market that we enjoyed two years ago.  Bought some shelled peas, purple kale and corn.  Oh, and some delicious homemade cakes.  Can't wait to sample.  This evening we went for a walk and ended up having dinner at a church that is organized by the local Latin American community.  They are trying to raise funds for a down payment to buy part of the Baptist Church.  Enjoyed talking with some of the members.  And tamales and flan,  YUM!

 

There!  Now I'm caught up!

 

Next we'll head north, probably up the waterway if these thunderstorms persist, to Jekyll Island.  After that, we'd like to do an overnight on the outside (Atlantic) to Charleston, but that, as usual, will also depend on the weather.  It's supposed to become drier on Thursday, so we'll see how we progress till then.  Probably do a little meandering, just like the lazy rivers of Georgia. 



This little guy greeted us at the dinghy dock to nibble on the vegetation. 
We named him Barnacle Bill and are resisting the urge to grab the scraper and scrape those barnacles off of his back.