The Search For Bright Waters

Thursday, February 3, 2011

St Augustine and the Atlantic

By the time we pulled up the anchor and fueled up in Fernandina Beach Sunday morning we were already sweating and quickly changed into summer clothes!  We had to brush the dust off our shorts and t-shirts but were so happy we have beat the cold!





We also decided to start using our single piece of exercise equipment, the Shake Weight.  It's hard and makes us look silly but its better than nothing.



The Independence 2
Most Awesome Ship Ever




Gettin fancy in the kitchen. Christine made our favorite, Green Bean Casserole.  We don't have an oven but the rice cooker is very versatile




Under our new short days rule we anchored just before Jacksonville.  We ran aground once and not much else exciting there. We made it to St Augustine Monday and could see the Atlantic coming into the city.  Mile Marker 778








We anchored and quickly went into town.  It cost us $10 to land our dinghy which we weren't happy about but it was worth it as the city was full of shops and fun to walk around.








We found a happy hour that sold us 4 beers and 2 slices of pizza for $1!  We ended up also buying a whole pizza but it was still a good deal.  There were a lot of ice cream shops, art galleries, and Cuban stores.  We ended up getting a bottle of hot sauce as our souvenir.



 We awoke Tuesday and decided to stay put.  We relaxed in the morning and went for a dinghy ride in the afternoon.  But not just any dinghy ride, a dinghy ride to the Atlantic Ocean!  As in the pic earlier we could see the Atlantic Ocean on our way in, and since St Augustine was inland we still wanted to go to a beach.  So we decided we would dinghy around the corner through a piece of the Atlantic Ocean to the front of the beach of the Anastasia State Park.




The water got choppier the further we went but it was never too bad and soon we were behind the real waves on our way to the beach.  The waves were only a couple feet and we rode one in all the way to shore. We pulled up the dinghy engine and beached Sawyer.  There wasn't much on this island, just sand, shells, dunes, and one disgruntled metal detector dude but it was still fun to have to beach under our feet.









Soon we had to get back before it got too dark and we noticed the tide came in and was trying to take Sawyer out to sea.  We ran as fast as we could back to the dinghy before it left without us.  Then the hard part, getting back out past the waves!  It took us a couple tries of getting knocked down by the waves and after we gave up trying to stay dry we ran the dinghy out into deeper water, started it up, hopped in and jetted off over the waves.  Luckily we keep a hand held bilge pump in the dinghy cuz the waves had put a lot of water in with us.  We took turns driving and pumping out water until we were back to our harbor. 

My cell phone got wet and no longer works but we were turning them off in a week anyway so it wasn't too big of a loss.



We passed this really cool sailboat on the way back in





As we approached our boat we ran into familiar faces,  Hans and Laura aboard Knotty Cat had just anchored!  We were a little embarrassed to be soaking wet from our recent Atlantic crossing but still stopped by to say hello.  We were leaving in the morning though so we went back to the boat for an early night.



We also met a personal milestone, we now have 1500 miles of sailing experience in our career.  We are still noobs tho.


9 comments:

S/V Waterfall said...

HEY GUYS, ENJOYING YOUR BLOG! MY WIFE , KIDS AND I JUST FINISHED A YEAR ON OUR GEMINI (LAKE ONTARIO TO BAHAMAS) SO I AM RELIVING MANY OF THE PLACES YOU ARE SEEING NOW. WE HAVE A BLOG WHICH I NEED TO UPDATE WWW.STEELESTREETOCEANEERS.BLOGSPOT.COM
LISA AND I DID A TRIP MUCH LIKE YOURS BEFORE, NO KIDS, OLD BOAT, TIGHT BUDGET, NO DEPTH SOUNDER FOR 4000MILES (ALWAYS NEEDED MORE BEER WHEN THE TIME CAME TO BUY ONE!!). WAY BACK IN OUR BLOG YOU WILL SEE PICS OF THE ICW 9DRUNKEN NIGHT IN ST. AUGUSTINE, MANY BEERS AT THAT BAR IN THE TREEHOUSE!!). HAVE FUN, WE'LL BE BACK OUT THERE IN ANOTHER 2 YEARS!!
MARK.

S/V Waterfall said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Laura and Hans said...

You made the Knotty Cat purr! She does so love some attention. We are currently underway and will have to anchor tonight. Not a lot of pickings anchorwise either let me tell you! We very much hope to motor in to Daytona tomorrow as Hans really wants to see the Steelers win the Superbowl!

Joey and Christine said...

Mark - thanks for reading, we cant wait to see what else is in store for us!

Knotty Cat - We will be cheering for the Steelers in Melbourne, FL

Ford said...

Just stumbled upon your blog, and your dinghy's name is Sawyer. Awesome. Will be following, best of luck!

Mid-Life Cruising! said...

St. Augustine looks great! Pizza n beer for $1.00?! Also, we have a rice cooker and don't know what to do with it! Would love some tips!

Joey and Christine said...

MLC - If you have an adequate sized inverter then you should keep the rice cooker. We don't have an oven so it takes the place of one. We cook everything in it.

It does pull a lot of amps (about 25 amps) so also make sure you have enough battery life available. We use it about 20 min at time so thats only 8 amps each use (our house bank is 320 amps). And we have solar panels that keep our batteries pretty topped off.

Joey and Christine said...

MLC: MEN.. lol eyeroll. What Joey meant to say was I have been encouraged to write a rice cooker cook book. We steam things in it, like put veggies in there with a little water, and let it steam, and as you saw, green bean casserole, soups, etc. It is not for cooking raw meat, but anything else you can cook in an oven, we find effective for the rice cooker. We even cook hot dogs in there! Hope that helps. We will try to post more as we use it. On shore it was our staple but now that we aren't plugged in we mostly rely on our alcohol stove.

Mid-Life Cruising! said...

LOL! Thanks Christine! Yes, some recipes would be great, as I hate to cook and need all the details I can get! We also have an alcohol stove and need to start using it just to make our decision if we like it or not. We hear a lot of conflicting opinions. - Cheryl Enjoying your blog and can't believe ya'll are already in Florida!