We heard from our friends on Q's End that it was rough getting into St. Augustine City Marina because of the winds and the tidal current in the marina. I checked the tide charts before we left Daytona Beach and found high tide was around 1:40 in the afternoon. Therefore slack water would be around 1:00 to 2:00 pm. While I could not eliminate the effect of the wind, I could minimize the effect of the current by getting there sometime around slack. Since St Augustine was about 55 miles up the ICWW, and we would be traveling around 8 knts, this meant that again we would have to leave around 7:30 to arrive at St Augustine at the right time. In fact we did leave at 7:45 again. Again the morning was quiet - no wind but it built up over the day. The trip was very circuitous as the ICWW wound around lots of shoaling and little sand islands. Had to pay strict attention to our course and where we were going. One of the bridges we passed under had mosaics on each of the pillars of dolphins and matinees - very pretty.
A little further along, a I was about to pass under a bridge, a sculler moved right into the channel in front of me. Fortunately we were under a no wake order in this part of the channel so he was faster than me at this stage. However, he could have been run over if I had been going my normal speed of 8 knots. It is dangerous for people to think they automatically have the right of way because they are not under power. Common sense should tell that I cannot stop or maneuver as easily as them, especially in a narrow channel. However no harm, no foul. The rower was part of club out for their morning row.
Lots of Canadian boats heading home for the summer. Of course when you see the Canadian flag,there is always a special hello.
We continued to travel down the waterway, a just before St. Augustine, my chart plotter went out leaving me to navigate with my paper charts. I don't know shy it went out and I am going to have to get an electronics guy over in St Augustine to fix it, because it is a lot easier to traverse the waterway with an electronic chart in front of you and a lot safer.
Anyways we arrived in St Augustine around 2 and there was little current but a lot of wind. Fortunately we moved right into the slip with little problem even though the wind was on our beam.
Our friends from Q's End were here and we went out to dinner with them and caught up to their adventures in the Bahamas.
No comments:
Post a Comment