Passage to St Augustine

We stayed only one night at Morgan’s Bluff, got out Bahamian money changed to USD at Kizzie’s Below Deck bar, and left when the weather on the Florida coast had a break from the N-NE winds that push up waves in the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a big help going N, adding 3-4 knots to your speed at times. We got up to 10-11 kn in very moderate winds!

As we approached St Augustine Inlet, we started hearing emergency traffic on VHF 16. A catamaran was in trouble at the inlet, taking on water. A rescue was in operation, and all persons came off the boat safely, but it had sunk. When we came through, there was no sign of it where the rescue boat's location had been. Further in, we passed the stricken vessel, where it had been dropped off in shallow water by a rescue boat. We think the captain took a route through shoal waters and, by his account, encountered 9 ft waves that slammed them onto the bottom, breaking the hull. Wow, that's no joke. We used a route indicated by buoys and never had less than 10 ft of water and 4 ft waves. It is interesting to note that St. Augustine Inlet’s buoys are no longer charted, as they are moved too frequently for charts to keep current - and old chart locations would surely lead to more groundings, not less.

For the past few weeks, the house batteries have been showing weakness, sometimes unable to power the boat instruments in the morning after keeping the refrigerator cold all night. The batteries are very large, three of 210 amp-hours each and not kept in stock in the Bahamas. So we just limped along, conserving power and being unable to use more than 45 amp-hours without recharging. When we arrived in St Augustine, we called Sailors Exchange, a store for used sailing goods and found they had just taken in three 160 amp-hour batteries that were only a year old. At about 1/3 the cost of new batteries, I promptly bought them. Score!

Since my brother lives nearby in Ponte Vedra, we have the privilege of staying in his house when we visit - always a high point. But this was different, as he was hosting a private party with the Seven Nations band rocking the clubhouse. They are a Celtic rock band, with fiddle instead of lead guitar, and a bag piper. The drummer, Dean, is a maniac akin to Keith Moon, and took a solo tour to drum at each table, on any available surface. John, the fiddler who played with the Chieftains for twenty years, also does Irish tap dancing. The rest of the band is equally accomplished, so we really had a great time.

But we got a weather window, so we moved further N to Savannah, where we'll prep Ashling for an extended time on the hard, in the Chesapeake Bay while we setup house in Bend, OR!Read more