"Life is a journey, love your boat equipment." I saw this quote attached to a Buddha statue at the Sailor's Exchange in St. Augustine, Florida. That little piece of Zen wisdom touched me. This week the boat equipment I love is our inflatable fenders/buoys. They are allowing Troubadour to rest against the pilings on her starboard aft side during the low "spring" tides. When the gravitational effects of the Sun and the Moon combine, we get spring tides, which have nothing to do with the season of spring. The term refers to the action of the seas springing out and then springing back. These are times of high high tides and low low tides.
See more at this link:
Spring Tides
Every day at the low tides we sink into the soft muddy bottom at Inlet Cove Marina. During the week preceding the full moon we were sinking so much at the lowest tides that we were listing as far as 10 degrees to starboard (you sailors can get the idea). For you non-sailors it's a bit unnerving when you are listing (leaning) and you are...how shall I say it...
NOT SAILING!
We overcame this dilemma by moving the fenders aft, adding the old main sheet as a dock line around the pilings and securing it to the jib sheet winch. About two hours
before low tide, we begin cinching up the dock line to bring the fenders to just touching the pilings. This lets us gradually lean on the pilings as we sink into the mud. By doing that it has greatly settled our nerves regarding "drying out" on the bottom. (No, we don't like it, but we had to improvise, given that we can't go anywhere while we await the motor mounts and the water lift muffler.) It worked enough so that we reduced our list to 3 - 4 degrees. It also helped that the lowest low tides were at 12 am (Friday), 1 am (Saturday) and 2 am (Sunday) and we were sound asleep. At some point around two hours
after the low tides, one of us will loosen the mooring line around the pilings to prepare for the high tides so that the boat will float freely in the climbing water column.
The tide table example is below, the measurement is in feet. These numbers are added to or subtracted from the lowest mean tide. (At best we figure that to be around 4 feet. We draw 6 feet. You do the math! Needless to say this slip isn't as deep as we were told. But we are stuck here - no pun intended!)
Tides for Ponce de Leon Inlet.
Friday Jan 9
Low 12:14 AM -0.5
High 6:40 AM 3.2
Low 12:48 PM 0.1
High 6:46 PM 3.0
Saturday Jan 10
Low 1:10 AM -0.6
High 7:34 AM 3.3
Low 1:42 PM -0.1
High 7:42 PM 3.2
Sunday Jan 11
Low 2:04 AM -0.6
High 8:24 AM 3.4
Low 2:35 PM -0.2
High 8:36 PM 3.3
On the bright side, breakfast on deck is delightful! We watch the resident sea turtle swim up for food and air, the seabirds dive for fish, and relish the warm sun and soft breezes.
PS St. Augustine is beautiful!
St. Augustine