St, Augustine, Florida

Today we are heading for St. Augustine -- our plan is to get there early, take a mooring at the municipal marina and tour the town.

St Augustine bills itself a the oldest "continuously occupied European settlement" in America -- a mouthful. Settled in 1565, it will be 450 years old next year -- that's very old for anything American. It should have called itself the "hottest bargaining chit in the New World". Originally settled by the Spanish, the city (and by extension, Florida itself), was never actually taken by force during the struggles to colonize the New World even though it was attacked many times. Rather, it was traded by Spain to England (for Havana), then ceded back to Spain by England at the end of the Revolutionary War and perhapos a decade later traded by Spain back to the U.S. in return for a defined border in the west between the two countries.

The city has gone to great lengths to preserve its history and tell its story -- there are many historical attractions in town: the Spanish fort, a colonial history quarter, many preserved buildings and street from the Spanish and colonial eras, a schoolhouse that dates from the early 1700's, the cleverly named Ponce De Leon Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park (which is supposedly built on the spot that he first landed in Florida and, among many other things, will sell you some water from a local spring).

The trip was pretty routine -- we have become used to seeing dolphins continuously along the Intercoastal and were not disappointed.  The only other notable event was navigating across the St. Augustine inlet to get to the city, which is situated behind an island just south of the inlet entrance. Like many inlets, this one is small and has a bad shoaling problem -- so bad that the charts don't show a path for the Intercoastal because the buoys move so frequently -- the guidebook made it sound very difficult to navigate, but it was well-marked and straightforward (a good thing!).

Scene along the way:  was this boat abandoned or anchored in a creek we couldn't see -- we'll never know !!

What was notable was that we had to make  "right turn" in the mouth of the inlet to go up and around the island -- coming into the turn we were doing over 7 knots; after the turn we could barely do 3.5 -- the inlet was on full ebb. Once around the turn, we were in a race with time to get through the next bascule bridge -- if we didn't get within 8 minutes, the tender told us we would half to wait the half hour for the next opening. It was an agonizingly slow race but we made it (with the tender's help, he graciously delayed his opening by a couple of minutes) -- shortly after we exited the bridge we were on a mooring at our marina home for the visit.

Just before the bridge, this 200' high cross supposedly marks the spot where the city's founder, Pedro Aviles, first set foot on land

The St. Augustine bascule bridge, the most attractive of all we've seen on the Intercoastal

 We caught a launch shuttle in (the marina's launch service only runs every other hour) and toured the town. We started by taking the "red train", a 45 minute open jitney ride round the town that points out all of the major attractions -- a bit hokey but it did give us a good feeling for the town's layout and helped us pick what we really wanted to see.

We then spent the rest of the day walking around to visit what interested us, namely: George Street (the Main Street of the city's colonial period), an 18th century one room schoolhouse, the St. Photios National Shrine of the Greek Orthodox Church (commemorates the first Greek Orthodox settlers in the New World -- see the Blog entry for New Smyrna for the full story), the fort that defended the city during the colonial period and always managed to repel any invaders (Castillo de San Marcos) and a reproduction of the colonial village.

George Street, in the colonial section of town

The  Greek Orthodox shrine -- small but beautiful !

The one room schoolhouse

Schoolhouse Interior (with animatronics teacher & students)

The fort was made from a rare form of limestone,, Coquina, which hardens when exposed to air

Built on a hill, surrounded by a moat and with walls that would simply "absorb" cannon balls, it was highly defensible!

One of the Fort's Battery's overlooking the Matanzas river which bounds the east  side of the city.

Tolomato River, Florida

Last night was difficult -- the wind died during after midnight and, despite our shields, there were n-see-ums in the boat (and even a mosquito or two). We had either waited too long to put up our shields or they were ineffective against the almost invisible no-see-ums -- either way, we both slept fitfully and don't feel very refreshed this morning.

We pulled up anchor hoping we might make the 40 miles to St. Augustine but the current was against us an it soon became very clear that we weren't going to make it there unless we put in another very long day. Since neither of us was up for that, we picked an anchorage that would allow us to take most of the afternoon off to relax.

We were leaving pretty much at dead low tide, so the birds were out in force gorging themselves on the snails, crabs an other seafood (for them) exposed on the tidal mud. We saw our first roseate spoonbill, a big-billed bird that looks comical as it slashes its spoon back and forth through the water picking up food.

Birds at Breakfast:

Low tide turns the salt marsh into a bird "all-you-can-eat" buffet

Not sure what these are, but they came to breakfast

We startled this stork off the table

My favorite was the roseate spoonbill -- its bill really does look like a big spoon

You have to wonder what the birds n the right are thinking about that spoonbill :-) 

This blue heron preferred to eat alone.

We crossed the St. John's river this morning, the main connection between Jacksonville and the Ocean. Like Savannah, Jacksonville is a few miles inland from the ocean. We bypassed the city itself -- we have been there by car and had no particular need to revisit. Our route took us through Cabbage Swamp, a 12 mile man-made stretch of the Intercoastal lined on one side with nice homes,the other side being a swamp full of cabbage palms. Straight as an arrow, it was like driving down nice residential street that bordered a park.

Jacksonville in the distance

We arrived at our anchorage in the early afternoon, dropped the hook and took a swim. The current was strong so we mostly had to hang onto our safety lines.  I used the rest of the afternoon to catch up on my blogging -- I had fallen more than a week behind.

While I was on deck blogging, another southbound sailboat passed us  by -- the first in a long time. We have been pretty much "alone" heading south at this time of year -- most snowbird cruisers, the main users of the Intercoastal as a highway south,  wait till September to leave the Northeast -- we were far ahead of them.

The moon came up around dusk -- it was roughly a half moon and made My Weigh and our surroundings glow in the moonlight -- I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Fort George River, Florida

Our goal for today is simply to reach Florida -- we are perhaps 30 miles away from the border and , as beautiful as Georgia has been, we are ready to enter the "home stretch" for our trip home. The route is straightforward -- we cross Jekyll sound and take the Cumberland River which runs down the back of Cumberland Island, the largest and longest of all of Georgia's Sea Islands (17 miles long) -- the border is halfway across St. Mary's inlet at the bottom of that island.

Lighthouse on north end of Cumberland Island

Jekyll Sound has lots of shoaling in it, so much so that we were told by the locals to not respect a red marker near the entrance as things had "shoaled up quite a bit out there" -- there was enough depth behind the marker for us to slip by it, which is what we did -- always good to check local knowledge when you can.

About 2/3 of the way down the Cumberland River, it goes right by the home port of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic ballistic missile submarine fleet -- King's Bay. Needless to say, there was plenty of security around the area, keeping us away from the docks. The guidebook said that there are times when a patrol boat might "intercept you and direct you to come to a full stop well off the Intercoastal with bow pointed to shore until a naval vessel clears the area" -- -- even Norfolk didn't have that kind of warning -- extra precautions because of the nukes?

Military installations always have strange looking buildings

This is as close as we got; the sub's conning tower ins behind the patrol boat

Not sure what this is -- yet another strange "building" !

St. Mary's Inlet was busy but easily navigated -- we made it to Florida! -- "just" 300 miles to go :-)

We entered the Amelia River, which, unsurprisingly, separates Amelia Island, the first barrier island in Florida, from the mainland. Fernandina beach is the first big town in on the island and sadly, it is very industrial (ugly and smelly) for the first few miles along the Intercoastal. Eventually however, it turned residential and we started seeing one of the defining characteristics of Florida's Intercoastal, residential developments built-on on man-made canals.

 Scenes along the Way:

Pelicans& friends on the Point

Industrial Fernandina Beach (Amelia Island)

Coast guard practicing pursuit manoeuvres off Amelia Island

More Industrial yuck at the North end of Amelia

Residential Amelia -- a very long boardwalk connecting a house to its dock !

We had originally picked an anchorage a few miles from the border but as we approached it and more carefully read all of our guides, we decided to pass on it -- the guides differed on whether the anchorage had shoaled up and the more negative guide said that some boats had reported that the anchorage was "totally dry at low tide" -- didn't sound like our kind of place.

Unfortunately, the next available option, the Fort George River anchorage, was 15 miles away. The anchorage itself sounded lovely -- a state park with a well preserved Plantation on it; but, we'd be fighting current and getting in after 5, making this one of our longest and most tiring days.

We arrived at the entrance to the river around 5, but there was one more challenge is store for us. The guidebook suggested using two marks as a "range" to establish a path into the river that avoided shoaling at  its entrance -- when we tried it, the bottom came up very quickly and we rapidly found ourselves in very shallow water. After backtracking and re-probing the river a couple of times on different paths, I found the deep way in nothing like the suggested range -- the shoaling had clearly moved.

The anchorage itself was lovely with salt marsh on one side and an island with the Plantation on the other. We were to tired to swim or cook -- we ate light and called it a day -- but not before putting up our shields -- the guide said no-see-ums might be an issue and they were -- they drove us off the deck well before dusk was over.

Plantation house hiding behind the palm trees .....

.... and the salt marsh across the way

Jekyll Island, Georgia

Today's weather was sunny and hot, with a light breeze (sound familiar?)

Actually, I should have pointed out a while ago that we have been in the "Horse Latitudes" since roughly Beaufort NC. Ranging from 35 to 30 degrees of latitude (roughly Beaufort NC to Jacksonville Fl on the east coast), this area is well known as a region where winds are generally light -- indeed, they got their name during the sailing era because boats would be becalmed for weeks and run out of supplies -- and when, as the folk story goes, water was getting low and there were horses on board, the horses would be pushed over the side -- actually, as a practical matter, they were probably eaten -- in any case, that's the "folk" theory why this region became known as the Horse Latitudes (Google Horse Latitudes to see other points of view). Back to our journey.....

We noticed boats leaving the marina as we were having breakfast -- people who had long trips to get home from the holiday weekend were taking off. This created an opening for us -- we called the marina, snagged a slip and were happily on a dock by 9:30.

Our plan for the day was to use the morning to take a walk to see part of the island (and get some fresh produce, something we had run out of), hang out at the Marina's pool for a while in the afternoon and then go out to dinner.

Jekyll is not a very developed Island -- there is a historic district with large hotel (the Jekyll Island Club) and a number of turn of the century "cottages", four golf courses, a stretch of lovely beach on the ocean side, a few basic stores in double-wides near the beaches, a small collection of vacation homes and not much else; i.e., no condos or high rises or honky-tonk on the island -- just pristine forest, salt marsh and lovely duned beaches.

Today's hotel started as an extremely exclusive club in the late 1880's -- 53 of the wealthiest northerners pooled their resources to build a "clubhouse" for their exclusive use. From the time it opened till WWII, the island was the exclusive playground of people like William Vanderbilt, J.P Morgan, Marshall Field and their ilk. A very few of them built "cottages" near the clubhouse to bring their families and retinues to the Island for an extended period -- cottages supposedly didn't have kitchens -- everyone was expected to eat and and socialize at the clubhouse.

WWII put and end to the party -- priorities changed and labor became scarce, driving the club into financial difficulties in the mid 1940's. Eventually, the state of Georgia bought the island in 1947 and handed it over to an "authority" to preserve its history, develop it for public use (no private dwellings) and "run it like a business". The result is what we have today: an uncrowded beach and golf destination with a well-preserved historical district available to all (well, the hotel isn't cheap but anyone can come over for the day).

Our walk today would be down bike paths (the island is laced with them). To get from our marina to the stores, we took a path that crossed the island to the beach side and then a path that ran along the beaches to the store area -- total distance 1.5-2 miles one way. There was little shade along the beach part of the walk, so the sun and the light breeze made it very hot going -- hot, but pleasant enough -- the path was uncrowded and clean, there were a number of modern fountains, changing houses and picnic areas along the way -- we even passed an under construction beachfront conference center and permanent homes for the existing stores (they are all currently in double-wides).  On our return trip, we stopped in a gas station/DQ complex just before the marina to reward ourselves for a "hot & sweaty grocery run" with an ice cream :-)

Sue and the bicycle path along the beach

Jekyll Island beach -- nice dunes separate the bicycle path from the beach

The under construction retail center -- with hotel rooms above?

As planned, the afternoon was spent at the marina's pool (with some laundry and consulting work accomplished on the side).

Our evening excursion was a mile or so bike ride to the historical district and dinner at what one local touted as the "best restaurant on the island", Latitude 31. The Jekyll Island Club Hotel was a impressive, rambling building; the "cottages" (all of which would qualify as Manses) were all architecturally different but fit the landscape very well. All were laid out in a long strip of oak shaded lanes with the club/hotel at the center and the cottages neatly laid out on either side -- quite beautiful and serene, not at all showy or out of place.

The sun setting on the Jekyll Island Club

The passing shuttle driver stopped, offered and took this picture of us -- great service !

Latitude 31 and its meal were delightful -- creek-side view, cloth table coverings, reasonably priced bottles of wine, excellent food (except for the key lime pie, which was just so-so) and attentive service -- a great climax for our visit to Jekyll Island.

Jekyll Creek -- Latitude 31 is in the building.

The postscript to the day was the bike ride back: there were no lights on the bike path, it was unfamiliar, very serpentine, including going through dark brooding wooded areas and narrow board-walked marshes and we had just eaten a full meal with lots of wine -- we made it back OK, but not without missing a turn or two and lots of giggling while we were asking ourselves "what were we thinking" :-)

Jekyll Island, Ga

We awoke to another sunny and hot morning, this time though with a nice Southeasterly breeze -- sleeping last night had been no problem -- the breeze was strong enough to ensure that air was moving through the boat all night --  and even though the nighttime temperature was in the high 70's, sleeping was quite comfortable.

Today we decided to make a run for Jekyll Island --  a relatively long distance away (45 miles),  it would be a good place to stop and take a day off from moving south. It is a relatively small Island, state owned and relatively undeveloped save for a historical district and, it has a fascinating history -- in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was used as a "playground" for the very wealthy -- more on that later.

The journey would take us down rivers behind Sapelo and St. Simon's Islands and across three different sounds  -- eventually we would have to enter Jekyll Creek, an infamous "trouble spot" on the Intercoastal -- about halfway up the creek there is a an area celled the "mud flats" that has the worst shoaling in the whole Intercoastal -- if you wander out of the very narrow, not very well marked channel, you are in for thin water at best, more likely a grounding. Of course, our destination, either a marina or an anchorage, was on the other side of the mud flats -- we would have to cross them before we were done for the day.

Scenes along the way:

Avian hangout

Fishing in front of a McMansion

Pelican saying: Stop gawking & move on, you are scaring away the fish!

New Brunswick, a large paper-mill town, is close to Jekyll Island

We were unsure of how much the current might hinder or help us, so we had identified a couple of potential bail-out points along the way, but the mood of the crew was clear -- we both wanted to go for it and get there. As it turned out, the trip was pleasant with the SE breeze blowing all the way -- the current definitely was helping us overall, and as the day wore on, it became pretty clear that we would be able to make it as long as we didn't get stuck at the mud flats. It also became clear that we would be getting to the mud flats soon after high tide -- not optimum but not bad since the water would be close to the "best it could be". Of course, if we ran aground on the falling tide and couldn't get off quickly, we would be stuck for probably close to a full 12 hour tide cycle, not a happy thought.

As we approached Jekyll Creek, we called the marina to see whether there was room for us -- being the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, the answer was a polite but firm "No" -- they were packed to the gills. No problem, we knew there was a nice anchorage just beyond the Marina -- we could drop a hook there and dinghy into the Island (and even use the marina's showers, laundry, pool, etc.)  --we had it covered.

The entrance to the creek is somewhat complicated (and dangerous with an "underwater jetty" lurking just beyond the starboard marks -- you don't want to wander out of the channel here). I was at the helm and feeling pretty good once we got inside the creek -- the water was relatively deep (12') and the route well marked -- we just had to get through the pesky mud flats.

We were running along quite nicely, right where we should have been according to the marks, when bang, the depth went from 12' to 6' in the blink of an eye -- I immediately slowed the boat down and started to "weave" back and forth to seek deeper water, a stratagem that has worked many times before  -- we had clearly wandered out of the channel and I was hoping to rediscover it.

Alas, that was not to be -- no amount of weaving seemed to find deeper water -- rather the depths kept getting shallower and shallower -- we were making forward progress, slow for sure but definitely forward, yet I was seeing readings on the depth meter below 3 feet -- readings that anywhere else would indicate that we were aground -- yet we slowly moved forward. The only possible explanation was that we were plowing our way through the mud flats -- the bottom was so loose and soft that the keel could act as a plow and dig its own furrow. This was nerve wracking but turning back just  didn't seem like the right thing to do -- so we persevered forward -- and got lucky, for after about a hundred yards of this slow plowing, the depths started to creep up again -- we had made through!

The depths were soon back to 12' and shortly thereafter, we passed the Marina we had called (boats were in every conceivable spot on their docks). The anchorage was a bit further on and was wide and roomy -- we dropped the hook.

Oh, and did I mention the fact that the guidebooks warned us that there was a potentially noisy water park next to the anchorage? Well, there was although luckily, the wind was blowing the noise away from us, so it wasn't very objectionable at all.

Water park in our backyard

By this time, we were almost halfway to low and the current was running pretty strongly through the anchorage -- we rigged our safety flotation lines before venturing out for a swim -- this was the strongest current we had experienced all trip -- we didn't stay in long, but enjoyed being cooled down by the clean green water.

Sundowners and dinner followed shortly thereafter, with an evening light show from thunderstorms to our west -- we could see the lightening and occasionally hear the rumble of thunder, but happily these storms had formed inland and were heading west, so their only impact on us was to be our evening's entertainment.

Light show in the distance !

Even bigger light show !

Crescent River, Ga

We awoke to another sunny, hot and light breeze day -- sleeping last night was rough --- there was only a very light breeze and courtesy of the strong tidal current, the boat mostly faced away from it. I had rigged a towel to steer some of the breeze into the big forward hatch before I turned in; it worked for a while, but eventually the overnight breeze died, leaving us in a breeze free V-berth for much of the night.

I usually go up on deck shortly after wakening to check out the weather and the morning. Today, I found a fisherman in a small boat quietly fishing just of our port bow. The water was still and he seemed to be bottom fishing -- we saw him pull out two small sharks, one of them a hammer head, in the few minutes we watched him while we were pulling up the anchor -- he was still fishing quietly as we left the anchorage.

The fisherman off our bow

The current was initially against us, but we soon came upon St. Catherine's sound, where it reversed and started to help us -- like the inlets in North Carolina, this pattern of hinder/help (or vice-versa) occurred each time we crossed a sound in Georgia -- the salt marshes are much wider along the Georgia coast so we running further "inland", away from the ocean -- the sounds connected all the river and creek systems in the marshes to the ocean.

Scene long the way:

Cleaning his catch / Feeding the Gulls

As it turned out, we traversed a number of sounds today and we were getting more help than hindrance so we made it a long day to take advantage of the friendly currents -- we ultimately did over 45 miles and ended up in another salt marsh anchorage behind Sapelo Island called Crescent creek -- it was much like the one from the night before.

Another creek lined with private docks

We had had numerous dolphin sightings over the day and we took a swim to cool down once we dropped the hook -- if today sounds a lot like yesterday, you are right -- the serpentine trip through the Georgia Marshes feels very repetitive -- almost monotonous.

Ah, but there is always something new to experience, even in the Georgia salt marshes -- I was on deck just before dusk and heard a strange "Snap, Crackle, Pop" sound coming from a disturbed patch of water that moved from our stern to the port side of the boat (and then disappeared) -- the guides had said this might happen -- the noise comes from tiny (inch long) "snapping shrimp"; they have a large claw and scientists have proven that the rapid closure of the claws causes cavitation air bubbles to be generated and it is the popping of those bubbles that makes the noise. These fellows are so noisy that in the large schools found just off the coast can hide a submarine from sonar -- I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the DoD has put out a grant trying to get someone to figure out how to use these creatures to "cloak" subs :-)

Finally, the setting crescent moon, milky way,  star and lightning show were both on again this evening with one important difference -- the clouds were higher above the horizon and the lightning brighter in this anchorage -- we had clearly drawn closer to the locale of the storms but they were still too far away for us to hear them.

Tonight's Crescent Moon

Vernon River, Beaulieu, Ga

Our route today would take us across the Georgia state line in the Savannah river and then further south into Georgia's coastal salt marshes. The Intercoastal in Georgia is very serpentine, following meandering rivers, cuts and creeks as you worked your way through the state  -- indeed, many cruisers try and avoid Georgia's meandering Intercoastal altogether by sailing on the ocean from Beaufort SC to one of the inlets in Norther Florida. This tactic was not an option for us; at this time of year, the areas weather is dominated by the Bermuda high, winds are light and from the South (i.e., on our nose) -- there are no "Northers" that would make sailing south possible. Hence, we will have to do the 138 miles of Intercoastal to make the roughly 100 mile straight-line distance from Georgia to Florida.

After taking care of a few last minute chores (getting ice, topping off the tanks and getting rid of garbage), we locked-out of the Marina and were on our way. The current was initially against us but would turn and be with us later that morning.

The trip from Hilton Head involved going down Calibogue Sound and cutting behind Daufuskie Island to get over to the Savannah River. We happened to arrive at the river the same time a container-ship was coming in from the ocean -- it's amazing how big those ships are up close (and how little you feel on a boat like My Weigh). We crossed the shipping channel behind the container ship, seeing some dolphins feeding in and around the channel.

Harbor Town from Calibogue Sound

Container ship going up river just as we are entering it.

This is as close as we got to Savanannah proper

Suburban Savannah -- not too shabby !!

Once in Georgia, we followed the meandering route through what amounts to the "suburbs" of Savannah (the city itself was a few miles up the river from where we crossed it). The rivers and creeks we traveled on were lined with big, nice homes and there were frequent towns with quaint names like Thunderbolt and Isle of Hope. We passed the Moon River of Johnny Mercer fame (it is distinctly NOT "wider than a mile".) Eventually we arrived at our destination, a bend in the Vernon River that would be our home for the evening.

We anchored off some private docks off the town of Beaulieu on the Vernon River

A private dock had a sailboat with a red mast, a rarity reminiscent of Aletheia, my first boat

It was a yet another hot and sunny day, so after we dropped the hook, we took a swim -- the current was strong in this area (another defining characteristic of Georgia's Intercoastal is big tides (7' or more) and corresponding strong currents), so we used flotation aids tied to the boat to make sure we didn't have any drama around one of us being caried away. Dinner was Sue's famous Asiago, Greek Olive and Fig pizza (made with flatbread and cooked on aluminum foil on the grill) -- delish :-)

The bugs weren't bad on the river, so I was able to stay on deck well past dusk. We had a setting crescent moon -- low in the sky, it did little to impact the stars -- you could see the milky way clearly and, while not overwhelming, there were plenty of stars and constellations visible -- magical. At the horizon, far in the southern distance, I could see the tops of clouds flashing as lightening bolts lept between and down from them. They were very far away -- heard no thunder and just above the horizon -- but they were south, in the direction we were heading.