Two Way Fish Camp to St Augustine

Hard aground (but upright) in the Brickhall River minutes before floating off.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Sunday, we had an uneventful trip from Two Way Fish Camp to our anchorage off Cumberland Island, GA. We arrived at Jekyll Creek about an hour early. Jekyll Creek is reported to have as little as 4 feet of water in spots. We threw out an anchor, ate lunch, and read or knitted while we waited for the tide to rise, and then started down the creek. We didn’t have any trouble with water depth. We crossed St. Andrew’s Sound with lots of wind and swell. Adair had started a loaf of bread while we were anchored and managed to finish baking it while crossing the sound.

We anchored in the Brickhill River behind Cumberland Island Sunday night. The wind died during the night, and we thought we had seen the last of the predicted cold front. Wrong! No sooner had we gotten underway in the morning than the rain started, there was a tornado watch, and NOAA issued a severe weather warning for the Cumberland Island area. Being the careful sailors we are, we dropped an anchor in a curve of the river to wait out the storms. Our trusty radar can see rain, and it let us know when the bad weather had passed. We weighed anchor and continued down the river to rejoin the ICW. Unfortunately, it was by then nearing low tide, and we found a five foot shoal with our five foot keel in the mouth of the river which became even shallower as the tide fell. Bill sounded around the boat, then dinghied an anchor out into deeper water. We waited for the tide to finish falling and then rise again. The skies cleared, we waited. We read or knitted, and waited. Finally, Irish Eyes floated off her bar and once again we were headed to Florida.

The wind was perfect after the weather cleared, and we actually raised a sail for a bit. We anchored off Fernandina, FL for the night.

Today’s trip to St. Augustine was uneventful. We saw lots of birds, white ibis, white pelicans, and ones we can’t find in our bird book. We are anchored tonight in the St. Augustine, FL harbor along with at least 50 other boats. Some look great; others look like they have been abandoned (or worse). This is as far south as we have travelled in Canary, our 22 foot sailboat. Navigating the junction of the ICW & the St. Augustine inlet on a February afternoon in a 34 foot boat is very different doing the same thing on a September Saturday afternoon in a 22 foot boat. We didn’t see but one other boat this afternoon. We both remember a flotilla of power boats zooming all around and rolling us in their wakes when we came here in Canary. It was much calmer today.

Life is really good!