Fernandiana south to St. Augustine
01 December 2016
We made the short motor run to Fernandina, FL on the 28th. We have been to Fernandina before, but this was a different visit. Hurricane Matthew had badly damaged the marina and it is still closed. The mooring fields outside the marina are also closed although some are still visible and locals told us they are not being monitored. We got fuel at Port Consolidated where Willie gave us all the local scoop about the marina and the FEMA issues trying to get it rebuilt. We anchored outside the mooring field with a few other boats...what a difference this is having on the town and small business impact when boaters don't stop and spend money. We made the usual rounds, publix for a few supplies, the Pelican for happy hour and Pablo's, one of our favorite restaurants in town. We stayed a couple of days, visiting the local coffee shop to charge phones and enjoy the street life in this small quaint river town.
We left Fernandina on December 1st with the tide, out the inlet, south off shore, to St. John's Inlet. There is a new bridge at Sisters Creek, just north of the St. Johns River and during demolition of the old bridge they have passage set up at 63.8 ft vertical clearance. We need 64 ft, and low tide isn't until late in the afternoon so decided best route to St. Augustine was to go outside and around. St. Augustine Inlet is notorious for shifting shoals and relocated markings, it isn't even charted so we elect to not go in from the sea. The trip south was pleasant enough, but cold for this part of Florida, we motor sailed to keep our speed up and intersect south on the ICW before dark. The St. Johns Inlet is well marked and wide, but we hadn't realized the 10 miles you had to travel in toward Jacksonville before meeting the ICW intersection. The inlet did however have one really exciting advantage. We have never seen so many dolphins in one area before. Once past the jettings, they were everywhere, literally hundreds of them. The young ones in schools playing, jumping, diving, with adults following the boat or monitoring the young ones. It lasted for miles up the river. We finally intersected the ICW and turned south toward St. Augustine. It was getting late and the next decent anchorage was 20 miles south, so we decided to pull off in the salt marshes and anchor at "three islands" a well established anchorage. There was one boat already anchored, which next morning we find out was from New Bern, very close to home in NC.