St Augustine, welcome to the oldest city…Part 2
Join us on our boat as we journey down the Intercostal Waterway to the oldest European city in North America.
Almost like home
It had been more than a year since we had moved aboard Rána and now that we were on our journey to St Augustine we found ourselves back at the vary same marina we started.
Be sure to check out part 1 here.
Palm Cove Marina is a reasonably decent place along the ICW (Intercoastal Water Way) with some standard amenities and a swimming pool. We had stayed there for 2 weeks at a time over several months when we first bought the boat but before we sold our house. We got pretty familiar with the area so it felt good to be back.
I like the green one
With only one night at Palm Cove Marina, exploring wasn’t top on our priority list but going for a walk seemed in order. We passed by a business that we had seen many times before but honestly weren’t sure what it was for. Our best guess is a high-end car dealership. This place seemed to collect very nice cars. Osiris especially loved seeing these awesome machines.
Calling it a night
After our walk we went back to Rána to get a good night’s rest. We had completed the first leg of our first real journey. All of us had a feeling of accomplishment and pride that is hard to match. Still there was a lingering stress for the day to come.
Preparing for day two
We had been warned about how difficult the St Augustine inlet area was. Just about everyone we talked to said it was one of the worst and was constantly changing. We heard horror story after horror story of people running aground as they came in or out. This did not help our anxiety at all.
TowBoatUs to the rescue
Before leaving we spent a lot of time looking over the charts for the inlet. It seemed simple enough but with all the stories we had heard we weren’t sure. We decided to call TowBoatUS to ask about the inlet. They were kind enough to put us in touch with a captain that works that inlet. After talking for a few minutes, he reassured us that it really was not too difficult if you pay attention. He suggested that most of the people who run aground are the ones that go off course while they make a sandwich instead of driving. He mentioned that just the fact that we were asking suggested we were more likely to be successful.
Watch out for those currents
In our research of the area, we did find out that the St Augustine Municipal Marina, where we were headed, was prone to high currents which makes for more difficult docking. We found out that the slack tide (the moment when the tides are between going in and going out so the current is near zero) would happen at around 3PM the day we wanted to come in. With that in mind we picked our disembarking time from Palm Cove so that we would get to St Augustine just in time.
Day two
We woke up early and took the dog for a quick walk then hurried to get the boat ready. We pushed off the dock and set out on our second day. For the most part the day was pretty easy. We made great time and ended up near the St Augustine inlet much sooner than we had expected. To be sure we went through it with the best chances of success we decided to spin circles to kill some time.
Crossing the inlet
When the time finally came, we made our way through the inlet area despite all of our nervousness. As we crossed the area where the ocean comes in and meets the ICW it got somewhat choppy, the wind picked up, and it didn’t help that it was pretty busy with other boats.
Well, that wasn’t so bad
With a small bit of luck and a lot of preparation we were able to get past the inlet with nothing more than a lot of unnecessary fears. As it turns out it was pretty easy to navigate. Once past, we had to stop and wait for the Bridge of Lions to open.
Our last bridge
The line for the bridge was fairly long and included at least 6 boats on our side of the bridge and several more on the other side. After what felt like hours, the bridge finally opened. We slowly made our way through the bridge then contacted the marina for a slip assignment.
Welcome to St. Augustine
The St Augustine Municipal Marina was very helpful and easy to work with. They told us which slip to use and had a dock hand available to help us in. Since we had waited for slack tide the current was near zero which made our docking very easy and without incident.
