S of St. Augustine

Sunday, June 17, 2007

029-51.000 N
081-18.600 W

Ahoy from a beautiful anchorage just S of St. Augustine!

Yesterday we made the 65 mile trek from New Smyrna, FL to this anchorage which is just south of St. Augustine. Along the way we once again passed by the Houses of the Rich and Famous. It was a beautiful trip passing through gorgeous open spaces and then back to communities. Some of the houses that we saw were spectacular in their size, although sometimes not in their architecture. I guess it goes to prove that money can buy you things, but it doesn't guarantee style. It's also easy to see areas which haven't become desirable as of yet, as the houses were typical smaller FL style ranches. In areas that are being desirable, the older houses are being razed and replaced with McMansions. Sometimes the juxtaposition of the old and the new is humorous and quite often sad.

I was going to come up with my top 10 list of why I like and dislike traveling on the weekend, but the only "like" that I could come up with was that the bridges don't have any restricted hours. However, my "dislike" list was very long:

• Tons of boat traffic
• Jet skies that use you as a slalom course
• Boaters who don't know the rules
• Boaters who know the rules and just don't care
• A special case of the above is the Sports Fishing boats who have important places to be and pass close by throwing up 4' wakes
• Boaters who think that they're doing you a favor by going along at a slow pace, but their speed is such that their stern is as deep in the water as possible throwing up the maximum wake. I guess that falls under #3.
• Boats pulling skiers or people in tubes who fall right in front of you.
• Too many people drinking and boating

Anyhow, it can be a zoo out on the water on the weekends, especially when it's beautiful weather. It's been mid-80s during the day and this morning it's in the low 70s.

Oh, I have to report that we saw some Flamingos! We searched all through the Crooked and Acklin islands for flamingos, and we didn't see a single live one. Yesterday at dusk a flock of them flew over! Amazing!

We were having trouble figuring out where to spend the night. A marina in St. Augustine was going to cost $100+ and all that we were going to do was pull in and tie up to the dock. We found an anchorage just S of St. Augustine on the ICW that's protected by a shoal and is surrounded by marsh. Once the boat traffic died down, it was a flat as a pancake, but has a strong tidal flow.

We thought that it was going to be a very peaceful anchorage until a small power boat drove up onto the shoal and the couple decided to start calling each other every name in the book and the start beating on one another. This wasn't a clear case of him beating her up as she definitely took a few swings and it didn't help when she threw the keys overboard. We ended up calling the marine patrol who didn't show up before they got off the shoal and got the engine started. However, we think that they pulled them over based upon some phone calls that we got from them. I can only imagine their different stories.

Today we're going to continue down the ICW toward Jacksonville as the winds are out of 70 degrees and our course to Charleston is 35 degrees, which means that we'd be headed right into the wind. The winds are supposed to go to the S (180 degrees) tomorrow, which looks much better for us.

-- Geoff & Sue

For the cruiser: We're anchored at mile 781.2 in a pocket of deep water. To get into here, leave the ICW N of R18 and proceed S into a pocket behind the shoal. The shoal extends to the NW and is well marked by R18 and R20. We're anchored in 14' in good holding.

Log ID: 980