Anxious to make time, we headed away from Melissa's dock on Monday morning and headed back up the Intercoastal Waterway. We were watching the low off the coast which had potential for tropical development. Every day they increased the chance of development until it was at 70 percent by Thursday AM. Travel on the ICW gets very busy on weekends and with Memorial Day weekend, the Captain's birthday and a tropical storm bearing down on us, we decided to push on to St Augustine and grab one of the new moorings. All public moorings in FL are hurricane rated. We had a pretty good time on Friday despite the forecast and woke up on Saturday to TS Beryl heading towards the NE Florida and Georgia coast. Projected landfall for Sunday night with deteriorating conditions starting on Sunday morning. What to do?
The reality of winds in excess of 40 is that if something breaks and you have the force of the wind against you, mother nature wins. Personal safety and comfort is my priority. I made some calls and did some checking on line and found a cheap room walking distance to the marina. I decided I did not want to ride out this storm on a mooring. The marina operates a water taxi and they came to pick me up at noon on Sunday. Kevin opted to stay with the boat at first but then changed his mind and got the last ride in to shore. Waves had really picked up and the winds were in the 20s already. We spent the night watching the storm on TV and out the window. The most severe weather was to the North of us. Kevin was up early and out to the boat to check on everything. We left the wind meter on and the highest wind was 42 knots. No lines had chaffed and there was some leaks but all is good.