Women Who Sail

Sailing Journey From Jacksonville To Cumberland Island

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Ahoy, friends! Gather around and let us tell you about our sailing journey from Jacksonville to Cumberland Island, from a while back. We bid farewell to Sisters Creek Free Dock and set sail into the vast, open ocean on a calm overcast morning in June.

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Deirdre drives us out into the ocean.

Deirdre takes the helm as we head out of the inlet, but quickly having had enough of the sea spray and salty air, she promptly buries her face in a book.

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Her Hermione is showing

Meanwhile, Osiris dutifully keeps watch on the waves, ever vigilant for any signs of sea creatures. Jason and I work together to hoist the sails and catch the wind, feeling the exhilaration build with each passing moment.

keeping watch, boat kid
His favorite part of boating

We continue on, enjoying another day of sailing, taking in the sights and sounds of the ocean. Even Puppins, our furry first mate, takes a nap while we sail – is there anything more adorable than a dog snoozing on a boat?

napping pup, sleeping dogs, sailing journey
Princess Puppins takes a nap

As we sail into St. Mary’s Inlet, we can’t resist a stop at Fernandina. Even from the boat, we are greeted by some impressive mega yachts and a cruise ship on the horizon. We scan the area and find a good spot where we can anchor when we return at the end of the week for provisioning.

cruise ship, sailing journey, Fernandina
This one is a baby cruise ship!

As we continue north towards our intended destination, we suddenly hear a splash! Our foghorn has fallen off the boat! It had been a foggy morning when we left, and we needed it for safety reasons. Thankfully, we quickly spin the boat around and use our trusty boathook to retrieve it from the water.

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The sails billowing, and the open ocean

Soon enough, we anchor at Cumberland Island for a week of adventure. But we’ll save those stories for another post – trust us, it involves mud, manatees, and wild horses!

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Jason on the bow

Thanks for joining us on this trip down memory lane, friends. We hope you enjoyed reading about our adventure on the open ocean, and we can’t wait to share more stories with you soon. If you want to read more about our sailing trips, be sure to check out our previous posts here. And don’t forget to connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube to stay up to date on our latest adventures. Fair winds and following seas!

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Jason and I at the helm
St Augustine, welcome to the oldest city…Part 2

St Augustine, welcome to the oldest city…Part 2

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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.

Palm Cove Marina
Palm Cove Marina

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.

AMG GT R
AMG GT R

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.

Rána
Rána

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.

Capsize in St Augustine Inlet
Capsize in St Augustine Inlet

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.

St Augustine Inlet
St Augustine Inlet

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.

St Augustine Municipal Marina
St Augustine Municipal Marina

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.

Palm Cove to St Augustine
Palm Cove to St Augustine

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.

Carolyn at the helm
Carolyn at the helm

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.

Bridge of Lions
Bridge of Lions

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.

Schooner Freedom going through the Bridge of Lions
Schooner Freedom going through the Bridge of Lions

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.

Tying up
Tying up

When we got settled, some friends from our previous marina joined us. It took us 2 days to get to St Augustine in our sailboat. It took them 45 minutes to drive there. For them it was a quick trip, for us it was an adventure.

For more check out our Instagram and Facebooks pages.

St Augustine or bust…Part 1

St Augustine or bust…Part 1

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The Adventure Starts (Slowly)
We set off from our home for the last year and half in the Ortega River. Having no idea what to expect, we planned out the trip as well as we knew how. After watching the weather for a few weeks we picked a weather window that we felt comfortable with. Under motor power our boat can only travel at around 8mph. This means that the 45-minute car ride to St Augustine was going to take us more like 20 hours in our slow boat. Since we picked a low wind weather window it meant motoring the entire time.
Skipper Carolyn!
Skipper Carolyn!
The Ditch (ICW)
In the interest of being safe, we decided to avoid making the whole trip straight through. We didn’t feel comfortable with traveling at night just yet. Our route did not have us going out into the ocean this time. Instead, we would be following the St Johns river and the ICW (Intercoastal Water Way). This is a winding path that is often narrow and shallow. Making it in the dark seemed like a bad idea for us just starting out.
Ortega River to St Augustine
Ortega River to St Augustine
First Stop
Since we were not going to make the whole trip in one-shot, we found a small marina called Palm Cove just off the ICW in Jacksonville. This place is about halfway between the Ortega River and St Augustine so it seemed like the perfect place to go. It also happened to be the marina we took possession of Rána at so we had an idea of what to expect. We also knew that we could only get in through their channel at high tide or we would run aground.
Palm Cove Marina (Jacksonville FL)
Palm Cove Marina (Jacksonville FL)
Seeing the Sights
The first half of our trip involved motoring through downtown Jacksonville. It was amazing seeing the high-rise buildings and massive bridges as we crawled past. Going only 8mph really gives you a lot of time to look around and enjoy the view! It sure beats driving at 70mph and missing everything.
Main Street Bridge (Jacksonville FL)
Main Street Bridge (Jacksonville FL)
Look, the Ocean!
Eventually, we made it to the Jacksonville ocean inlet. Although we did not need to go out into the ocean, this was where the ICW met up with the St Johns river so we had to get pretty close. All of the inlets where the ocean comes into a river are notorious for being unstable. The water coming and going often has fast currents and causes the silt on the bottom to shift around a lot making shoaling. This meant that even though our charts said we should have plenty of depth under us, we might still run aground on one of these unexpected shoals.
Mayport Inlet (Jacksonville FL)
Mayport Inlet (Jacksonville FL)
Running Aground
Just as we started making the turn south toward the ICW we saw a sailboat. I noticed that it had its sails open and also had smoke coming from the back, most likely from their engine. I didn’t think much of it at first but as we got closer, I started to realize that it wasn’t moving. This could only mean that she was grounded.
We were on a course that would put us right through where this sailboat was stopped so we quickly slowed down and turned to get further away. Just as we did, we felt it. Bump! Ever so slightly, we touched the bottom of the river with the bottom of our boat. We quickly reversed and moved away from the shoal. Seeing the stuck sailboat and reacting quickly saved us some possible boat damage and getting stuck. It didn’t help much with the pucker factor though.
Jason Driving
Jason Driving
Doing Circles
Despite our nerves being completely wrecked, we made our way down the ICW with very little stress from that point on. We actually went faster than we had expected so we ended up in front of the Palm Cove channel about 3 hours before we could go into it. Since we had not successfully anchored at that point, we decided to just spin circles outside their channel. When the tide got high enough, we made our way into their channel and successfully docked.
Circling Palm Cove Marina
Circling Palm Cove Marina
Palm Cove Marina
It was our first real planned trip as sailors and we felt great. We might not have known everything we could have and we made some mistakes but we did it and it was awesome! We would stay for just one night then be on our way to St Augustine in the morning.
What’s Stopping You?

What’s Stopping You?

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Over a year ago we sold everything; our house, our cars, toys, books and furniture to follow a dream of living on a boat and travelling the world. That was a monumentally big thing to do. We completely uprooted our lives and that added a lot of pressure to succeed. In a year and a half of owning the boat and a year of living on board we have barely moved it. Why?
It’s weird because I have been onboard with the idea of living on a boat from the beginning. In fact I was the one who pointed out we don’t have to wait for retirement to make it a reality.
Jason loves to sail. I have never sailed before but I love to travel. There really isn’t anywhere I wouldn’t like to visit. I want to go back to Ireland, visit uninhabited islands, experience the cultures of the South Pacific, see the cherry blossoms in Kyoto and the tulips blooming in the Netherlands, I want to see the Parthenon and the Great Pyramids and so many other places. We have been interested in the sailing and traveling life from the start. So what is stopping us?
Well we had some problems with the engine leaking water into the oil. The standing rigging that holds up the mast was 18 years old and in bad shape. One of our through-hulls started letting water seep into the boat from the river. Those were all critical things to fix… but…
I’ve never needed to be handy with fixing things in my life. Because repairs aren’t something I know how to do well, I tend to shy away from trying them. This is a mental roadblock for me. One that I have had to start facing because boats are a lot of work! Often too much for just one person.
I have needed to help more and more with projects. I helped re-bed hardware, remove, refit and replace through-hulls, epoxy and paint repairs, hoist sails, and climb the mast among other things.
I’m still not very handy but I am learning. As I learn and help I am realizing our boat starts to feel more real. Not just a place where we happen to live but something that is truly ours.
Some days it feels overwhelming and like maybe living on a boat was a bad choice and it would be so much easier to live in a house.
Then again… is an easy life what we really want? Or do we want to follow our dreams? Our brains build roadblocks in our path to success. They do this to mitigate the pain of failure. Our brains help us give up on our goals before even trying.
The truth is we have only been half committed to our dream. We have been letting the work that needs to be done become our roadblocks against really living our dream. One of those roadblocks for me has been driving the boat. It is 42 feet long and it is our home. The idea of making a mistake can be paralyzing if I let it.
I recently commented about not feeling comfortable docking the boat. One person replied to add a bunch of extra bumpers on and give it a try. This really resonated with me because what she was essentially saying is ‘face your roadblocks.’ I haven’t docked the boat yet but I did decide to take the helm and back it out of our slip to take it out for our first time actually sailing! This was big for me. It helped me realize that the fears we build up in our heads are usually worse than reality.
The more I do on the boat, and roadblocks I confront, the more excited I become to actually get sailing. It feels real in a different kind of way then just wanting to travel and even selling everything and living on our boat.
It feels a little bit more mine.
What are your dreams? What roadblocks are getting in your way? What can you do to face your roadblocks?