We Escaped the Saint Mary's Vortex

But just barely. The day we were supposed to leave, our friend Kim managed to borrow another friends car, and offered to take us to Walmart. We just couldn't pass that up, so delayed yet again, but for good reason. Thanks Kim. We spent 4 hours in Walmart, provisioning and finishing our Xmas shopping, but we are stocked up big time. Enough to get us all the way to Miami.

Friday morning we rose to a thick fog, and faced the possibility of being stuck again, but after an extra hour we could see far enough that we were willing to make the attempt, and hope that it cleared out before the day got too far along. So we weighed the anchor, said a quick goodbye as we swung passed our friends on Anthyllide, and headed out the channel, against an incoming tide. The vortex was trying hard, but Vita was in good form, and we were determined to make the transition into Florida.

We had a relatively uneventful day cruising down the ICW. The first thing we noticed that was different, was that the crap pots extend well into the channel, sometimes right across the channel, so vigilance was important. We do not want to get one of those crab pot floats wrapped around our prop. A difficult thing to do on our boat, but not impossible, and a real pain in the neck. Our first excitement of the day was pulling into the Jacksonville free town dock at max ebb tide. I had expected to be there at max tide - slack water, which would give us lots of water and no current to deal with, but as luck would have it, I read the current chart as the tide chart and got it completely backwards. A mistake I am not likely to make too many more times. As a result of my error, we were trying to dock in a 2 knot current, in an area that did not provide a whole lot of space and lower water levels. We ended up in backwards, and had to turn the boat around during the next slack water so that we would be able to leave in the morning, as the current would be coming the exact opposite direction, only at max flood. The good news was that we had a great afternoon, even though it was hot as hell, and we enjoyed sundowners with some new friends. In fact, I think Frank is the most enthusiastic Bahamas fan we have ever met. I hope I get the chance to go spear fishing with him in the Exumas one day. My guess is that he has far more to teach than I could possibly learn this season.

This morning dawned to the thickest fog yet. It was bad, pea soup bad, bread batter bad. We waited for an extra hour, and it seemed like it might lift soon, so we untied the dock lines and headed out into the river, expecting it to burn off like the day previously, but it never did. 7 1/2 hours later we tied up to a mooring ball in St. Augustine Florida, after spending the entire day trapped in a little smokey cocoon. It was so bad that Serena had to keep a constant look out while I steered by the chart plotter, the paper chart, and the compass. We would strain our eyes looking for the next mark, and keeping an eye on the depth sounder to make sure that we didn't stray into thin water. It was crazy. I was nervous most of the day, but Serena of course was having a blast. Little miss adrenaline junky. It took both of us to make sure that we stayed in the channel, and didn't hit any of the other boats. Serena did eventually manage enough time to make a quick breakfeast, coffee, and lunch. And I managed a little 45 min cat nap at one point during an easy stretch, but other than that, it was constant game of where the hell are we.

Here was our world for 7 1/2 hours. Every once in a while something would appear out of the fog bank, just to keep us alert.

Coming into St. Augustine, this pretty little ship came out of the fog to greet us, him on the wrong side of the channel and us in the middle of the channel trying to get onto our side. Turns out these are theatre/cruise boats. They put on theme based shows for the paying crew. It looked neat, and maybe one day will break down and pay the $40 a head, but not today. The bigger problem was the twit in the big power boat that was following this boat out of the inlet instead of using his own charts to navigate. He was so worried about losing the track of the boat in front, that he almost ran us over. We managed to get out of his way, but it was close.

The picture above shows us waiting for the Bridge of Lions at St. Augustine. The bridge is right in front of the power boat off of our bow, but we can't see it. We barely saw the power boat, but we knew it was there, because he had just trashed us with his wake, in the channel, and we heard him talking to the bridge operator.

St. Augustine is amazing, even in the fog. We walked around the downtown area, had some ice cream and fudge, and soaked up the atmosphere. Xmas lights everywhere, people everywhere, and dozens of cute little shops, and bars and restaurants. It can't be explained, it has to be experienced. However, true to form, I couldn't get over the fact that I was going cruising to get away from the kind of commercialism that spawns this type of setting, and the observation that this place is made of money, lots and lots of money.

Now its time to relax. Tomorrow we are not planning on going far, but we need to get into town and send off the Xmas presents to our kids and grandbaby back home. Then its off to somewhere we can prepare for the trip to the Bahamas, either West Palm Beach or Miami, we'll see when we get there.

Cheers. And happy holidays.