Pine Island to Fernandina

Sunday was spent idling around the boat taking care of small projects, both of us moving a little slowly after a great time Saturday night with Fred and the acrobatic Rick from 'Freedom'. Pine Island has such a snug little anchorage it was a great place to hang out and avoid the Sunday boat traffic and we were able to scrape the waterline of 4 inch long grass and miniature barnacles that have accumulated already. Star made good on her promise of making my favorite dish after we crossed north of our starting point in St. Augustine. Lapin a la moutarde. For those like me who don't 'parlez vous' very well, that's Rabbit in mustard sauce.

Today we were underway at 7:15 heading north with a couple of stopping options available, but we were staying flexible and had no certain destination. We crossed the St. Johns River and transited the Sister's Creek area at low tide and were on a just barely rising tide for the notoriously shoaling Nassau Sound area. To say it was a nail biter is an understatement. There's some comfort in travelling at low tide because if you ram your boat into the mud you can just sit there waiting for the rising water to float you free. The drawback is that the depth sounder's shallow water alarm is going off constantly. I was going to keep this politic free, but the last few days of shoaled Intracoastal Waterway have me frustrated and angry. If anyone thinks that our infrastucture is not degrading, they need to take a moderate draft vessel down the ICW. Our Grandfathers created and dredged the great inland waterway to a depth of 12 feet almost 90 years ago. And today, we can't even maintain it to 6 feet. So sad. In St. Augustine I saw a boat with a 4-1/2 draft run aground in an area charted as 23'. The next day on the way to Pine island I passed another 4-1/2 draft boat that was aground in the channel, although on one side of it. Today, albeit at low tide, I found 3 different spots with 6' and dropping as I had to veer off to one side of the channel and find water to pass through. The depth alarm is set at 7', to give us a foot and a half of warning, and it went off probably 6 or 7 times today. And we're not even in Georgia yet where the real problems are. It's getting difficult to figure which risks are greater; heading offshore without a life raft or epirb, or heading up the ICW without tow insurance. Ok, the rant is over.

So with the blood pressure already up, we decided to push on to Fernandina, and we chose to tie up to one of the City's mooring balls at $17 a night. This gives us access to their dinghy dock, laundry, showers, and some security considering the strong tidal current ripping through here. We plan to stay a couple of days and meet up with friends tomorrow, and this seems like a good place to relax for a little while before pushing onward to Beaufort, SC which is where we also plan to stop for a week or so and enjoy the town.

Star likes to call me 'The Paparazzi' because I take pictures of everything. Even the poor Chief sometimes falls victim to my stalking photography. The most often asked question when people find out that we have a dog onboard and don't go to shore very often is: "Where does he go to the bathroom?"

Well, let this last picture put the question to rest. I tried to save him at least a shred of dignity by photoshopping out the bad part. Please have a sense of humor. :)