A Windless Water Wander To St. Augustine

Once again the arbitrary and capricious wind gods forced us to motor the overnight, 150 mile passage from Savannah to St. Augustine. Or at least the gods withheld the wind until we arrived at the notorious St. Augustine inlet. Just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, the wind rose to 15, 18 and then 20+ knots. The wind was out of the north and normally would be great for a downwind sail. However, it was not great for entering an inlet described by Reed's Nautical Almanac as "....[one] of the most dangerous inlet channels on the Atlantic coast....[That] should be avoided at all costs, except in calm conditions and with local knowledge. Strangers should not attempt passage at St. Augustine...." We had been through the St. Augustine inlet several times before but always in calm conditions. The shoals shift here, sometimes from day to day, and the buoys aren't even located on the charts! Even on calm days, breakers line each side of the channel. Still, past experience had always found it pretty straight forward. "How hard can it be? I mean, it says, "strangers" shouldn't enter, but are we "strangers" really?" I said this to myself (choosing not to share my mild concern with Pat, sleeping peacefully below).


Three or four miles from of the buoy marking the inlet, I called Pat on deck to prepare. Part of that preparation was searching the internet for advice. There, however, I found only tales of death and destruction. That's the problem with the internet: too much information. Those dark warnings were offset by the brilliant sunshine and an the occasional dolphin; both read as good omens for our arrival. However, when I spoke to one dolphin swimming close, asking her to lead us in (Ala my hero, Bernard Moitessier), she just grinned and swam away. Rather than being dismayed, I took that as a sign of confidence. I found more concrete help by calling on the VHF to Seatow and "any boat", seeking local knowledge. The last time I did this, several years ago, I got a Coast Guard escort into Cape Hatteras in the dark with flashing blue lights and a parade of boats behind (but that's another story). This time, I got an immediate call back from a boater that had entered the harbor the day before and, then, Seatow responded. Both indicated that the entrance was indeed straight forward, literally. "Just stay inside the buoys, near the middle of the channel. Watch for RN "60", keep that to starboard and you should be okay." And we were. Entering on a rising tide, 2 hours before high water, our timing was nearly perfect. We saw nothing less than 20 feet of water through the inlet. Arriving safety around 9:30 am, we anchored in about 15 feet of water just off the seawall, near the Bridge of Lions and within 100 yards of the Castillo de San Marcos in downtown St. Augustine. If we decide to stay at this spot, we will probably set another anchor to accommodate the reversing current.


With temperatures in the low 60's and a bright cloudless day, we felt that at last we had found the warmth that had eluded us thus far. With a safe anchorage, a city full of great restaurants, and provisioning stores, we plan to stay here for about a week.