We Made it to Florida!

Cumberland Island National Seashore was our next stop after Jekyll Island, on Saturday December 2.  While the cruising guide warned of a "white knuckle trip across St. Andrews Sound", in fact, apart from the buoys appearing to be off station (one was onshore), we arrived around slack tide, with no wind and it was no problem.  We arrived in the Cumberland Island anchorage mid afternoon, put down the dinghy and went to visit another Canadian boat, Persistence, that had given us some anchoring advice on the way in. Then we went to the park office to investigate renting bikes to tour the island Sunday. Saturday night Bob and Sheila, Bill and Michael came to Trekker for games night, and we discussed our next stop and taught them the card game Wizard.  We had quite a laugh, and Michael gave Sheila a new name ... Sharon!

Sunday we biked around the south end of Cumberland island, first visiting Dungeness Ruins.  Revolutionary War Hero General Nathanael Greene acquired land on Cumberland Island in 1783. Following his death, his widow Catherine Greene, constructed a four-story tabby home that she named Dungeness. Thomas Carnegie and his wife Lucy began building another Dungeness on the original foundation in 1884. 

The Carnegie's Dungeness

The Carnegie's Dungeness burned in 1959 and today only the ruins remain on the site.

Dungeness Ruins

Just beyond the ruins we came across some of the feral horses on the island, decendants apparently of the Carnegie's horses.

Feral horses

Next we went to an incredible beach on the east side of the island that seemed to extend to the horizon! 

Cumberland Island beach

Unfortunately, consistent with the few other times we have anchored for a day, the sun never came out, and it was pretty cool on the beach.  We repaired to the forest just west of the dunes for lunch, and I couldn't help but recall a book we used to read the kids (over and over and over ....) "We'll spend the whole day at the beach. We'll have a picnic, it doesn't matter if a little sand gets in our sandwiches!"  

After lunch we went back to our respective boats and had a quiet night, ready for an 0800 departure to Jacksonville Beach Monday.

Monday we were away on schedule and as we were headed for the first bridge, Shenanigans, a boat we had met in Brunswick called to say they had just been under it, and it was only 63'.  The tide was falling, but I figured we would have to wait a couple of hours so made the executive decision to go outside down to St. John's Inlet.  It was a little bumpy going out, but once we bore away and turned off the motor there was actually enough wind to keep the sails full, and we had a nice leisurely sail.  Once down to the St. John's inlet though we met an outgoing tide against a NE wind which made for quite a roller coaster until we got between the breakwalls and a slow motor up the river.  Meanwhile, Her Diamond and Aquila had gone down the ICW, and due to a six knot current running through the Atlantic Boulevard / San Pablo bridge had anchored to wait for slacker water.  We caught up to them there and made it under the bridge safely. The nice thing about facing a strong current under a bridge is that I can effectively stop the boat and still maintain steerage!  We were really looking forward to a night and showers at the Beach Marina when we learned that since we would be arriving at low tide there would not be enough water for us to get in!  That was a problem, because it was getting dark and none of the cruising guides (including Skipper Bob) listed any anchorages less than 20 miles away!  Bob on Her Diamond did find a suggested anchorage on his Garmin Blue Charts, but when they tried it they went aground just off the channel.  We went on a little farther, and pulled just outside the channel and were lucky enough to find 15' and some room to swing.  Down went the anchor followed by HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK.  For the non-sailors, that means "Danger or doubt (I don’t understand your intent)". Coming down the ICW was a tug / barge with a big storm damaged power boat heeled over on deck. My first reaction was that we were too close to the channel, but then I noticed that Her Diamond was still maneuvering preparing to anchor, and was being warned of the oncoming barge.  Her Diamond had seen the barge and everyone passed safely. A short time later a local came along in his runabout and asked if we were ok ... thinking we were aground, and clearly not used to seeing anyone anchored in this particular location! Anyway, we talked it through with him and decided we were probably ok and thanked him for his concern. We put on the anchor light, our cockpit LED light that is so bright we have to shade it if we want to sit in the cockpit and turned on the AIS, hoping to make ourselves as visible as possible.  At bed time I looked out the ports and we were shrouded in a thick fog.  We wanted to get away at 0700 to make a bridge around 0900. I went to sleep hoping the fog would clear early.

Up at 0620 Tuesday, the fog was still pretty thick, but much better than it had been, so we decided to go.  Thank goodness for GPS, because it was pretty easy to follow the magenta line (that indicates the preferred route) down the ditch, and we could see enough to avoid debris and fishermen out for an early morning catch.  We made our 0900 bridge on a rising tide with about 66' clearance. About 0930 it cleared off and we got a better view of our surroundings!  Around 1030 we came up on another tug / barge combination going 3.9 knots.  The tide was falling and we could see our next bridge that I didn't want to arrive at until 1130 at which point I figured we would have about 65.5 feet. So we slowed down and poked along behind the tug and actually had just over 65'.  Another heart pounder because we had the current behind us and it would have been difficult to stop if we didn't fit! 

The Bridge of Lions closing behind Trekker

We squeezed under and our patience was rewarded when the tug received an unscheduled noon opening at the Bridge of Lions bascule bridge (split in the middle and pivoting at the ends) in St. Augustine.

Here is a link to a Youtube of the Bridge of Lions opening. It takes a long time to load. 

Once up to our Rivers Edge marina and docked I did some boat maintenance and Karen and Sheila went shopping.  Later we met Bill and Michael, Bob and Sheila at Ale Works for dinner.  Bill and Michael introduced us to Neil and Ley an Australian couple who have cruised around Asia, across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and up and down the US East Coast over the last 12 years. 

Michael, Bill, Sheila and Bob at the City Gates

Wednesday we toured St. Augustine using the "hop on hop off" trolley.  St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the United States. It was founded in 1565 by the Spanish but has fallen under British and American control over the years. It is a bit "touristy" but has lots of impressive Spanish colonial architecture, shops and restaurants.  We ended our touring at the Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States. Made of a stone called coquina (Spanish for "small shells") it is claimed that when hit by cannon balls the masonary would compress rather than shatter, resulting in it withstanding many attacks.

Castillo de San Marcos

There is an active social network of cruisers and liveaboards in St. Augustine that host a "cruisers net" on the VHF radio channel 72 in the morning. It turned out they were getting together at a local pub in the evening with $2 beer and free food, so we headed over! We met some more world girdling sailors who view a two day passage over to the Bahamas like we view a long day sail! We finished our day with Tapas at another restaurant, planning to meet for breakfast to prepare for another day of discovery!