Log of Nicki May: St. Simons to Daytona Beach

The sidewalks of the St. Simons area took quite a beating courtesy of my Tevas and Lisa's Keens. They may have suffered more tonnage damage from the Tevas, but were definitely more offended by the Keens. They are turquoise after all.

We debated making a short move to Jekyll Island where we could rent bikes to explore the island, but in the end we settled for a 40 nautical mile jaunt to Fernandina Beach. Since we did this outside, nearly half of the trip was going out the St. Simons Inlet and coming in the St. Marys Inlet, but the water is deeper out there. We like deep water. It also gave us a couple of hours to make water.

Normally, we rent a mooring when in Fernandina, but they were all full, so we anchored in 32 feet of water in a river just outside the mooring field. We weathered a short spell of nasty winds and then moved on towards St. Augustine. Dawn arrived 2 hours before low tide, which would have put us in a very thin part of the ICW at the wrong time. So, we went outside again.

The St. Augustine Inlet is not a class A inlet, and although it is used often by large (not ships) boats, it has claimed it's share of victims over the last couple of years. They have the money to dredge it, but the environmentalists and home owner associations keep fighting the city and making attorneys and study groups rich. Lisa called a Tow Boat US captain for advice on the inlet, and it didn't take him 2 seconds to convince her to use the St. Johns River Inlet (near Jacksonville) instead.

We should have stayed on the ICW. We underestimated the effect of the 5-7 foot swells colliding with the strong ebb in the St. Marys Inlet. We took quite a beating until we were able to leave the channel and bear off to the south. The fog was quite dense as well, and we were thankful that we had radar.

When we reached the shelter of the St. Johns jetties, things smoothed out and our muscles (yeah, we still have a trace of them left) were able to relax. A quick check confirmed we still had all of our teeth. Our plan was to anchor in an ox bow about 13 miles north of St. Augustine and then move on to St. Augustine the following day. We arrived in early afternoon and were the first boat in the anchorage, but we by sunset we had 10 neighbors.

Sunrise at the ox bow. A single-hander brought this pretty yawl in just before sunset the previous day.

Fog was forecast for the morning, but not much showed up.

There is no doubt that St. Augustine is a tourist town, but it is fun to walk the streets, look at the shops, and wonder why people would buy any of that junk--except for Kilwins ice cream. It is also amusing to enter the art galleries and watch the attendants stare at the Tevas/Keens, work their eyes past the sunglasses dangling from a shirt button, then past the backpack, then on up to the hats, force a smile and then quickly move on to the next couple with designer clothes and redesigned body parts. But that's only at the galleries. In general, neither Ethan or Billy Ray would feel out of place in town. It really is a nice town.