Fighting the Tide

St. Augustine to Atlantic Bridges – 29 nautical miles sailed, 2 miles in dinghy, 6 kilometres walked 

We decided another half day in St. Augustine was in order so we spent a couple of hours walking deeper into the peaceful residential neighbourhoods, avoiding the Saturday crush of tourists in the centre. We had considered attending the Lions Seafood Festival, but when we arrived and found an entrance fee, festival grounds jammed full of people, a band playing pop country, perfectly arranged rows of blue portable toilets giving off that fresh blue liquid smell, a throng of vendors selling generic crap, and no seafood in sight, we decided to return to the boat and make some miles.

The timing of the tides is far more important on the ICW that it is on the ocean as the narrow channels can develop strong currents, especially in the middle of the six-hour cycle of high to low. Sometimes these work in your favour, sometimes then don’t. Today, they did not. We motor-sailed through an opposing tide of 2 – 3 knots for nearly the entire ride, making a painfully slow 4 knots at times, occasionally less. There was a tremendous amount of boat traffic and the small powerboats and jet skis swarmed us like fruit flies on a three-day-old banana, kicking up wake from every direction, often waving at us and smiling as they passed ten feet from us, throwing tsunamis that rocked SeaLight back and forth, sending paperback novels and serving dishes flying.

The route was not particularly interesting, besides one stretch called Palm Valley which was a ruler-straight, narrow channel rowed with a series of houses, long docks, and two Bars and Grills on either end crammed full of people hammering back the Bud Lights, eating bacon double cheeseburgers with curly fries, and enjoying the occasional peeks of sunshine through the mainly overcast sky. Ana pulled up the aerial view on Google and found a huge residential area riddled with lakes, canals, and thousands of houses, which looked much like magnified bacteria culture in a petri dish.

We arrived to the Atlantic Boulevard Twin Bridges around 6:30 pm and dropped anchor in a wide area with strong current opposed by the 15 knot wind, which caused the boat to list and spin and grind against the anchor chain as it could not decide which way to go, like a kid faced with a candy store in one direction and ice cream shop in the other, with ten bucks in his sweaty hand and no parents in sight.

With a close eye on the anchor alarm, we enjoyed a long sundowner then had a delicious meal of pasta and meat sauce, which was superior to our strange meal last night that we consumed while watching a horror movie on Ana’s phone.

By later in the evening the boat traffic had slowed to a trickle, the vehicular traffic on the bridge had dried up, the currents and wind had come to an understanding, and we were able to enjoy a peaceful and quiet night at anchor.

Courtyards, Cuban Coffee, and Cannonballs

St. Augustine – 3 miles in dinghy, 5 kilometres walked 

Our first day back in St. Augustine was wonderful. And I’m happy for it as our initial experience here was on the way south during the insanely busy tourist week of Thanksgiving, and bordering on unpleasant due to the intense crowds. Today, we saw a beautiful side of St. Augustine. But not before a shocking meeting with a local marine canvas maker.

Two side panels of our cockpit enclosure have become yellowed to the point where we can barely see through them. Ana found a small canvas company in St. Augustine, spoke to the owner yesterday, and she asked us to meet her at 9am at the dock after she had met with another customer there. Ana and I have changed these Strataglass panels ourselves in the past, so we had a rough idea of how much the materials cost and time it takes to change them. We expected a cost of around $250, maybe a little more as this was a rush job. She was there shortly after 9 and was very friendly and seemed to know what she was doing. I unrolled the panels for her to see and she said she could have them done by early afternoon. The cost? $800 or $1144 in lowly Canadian funds. We passed. Nearly passed out, actually.

We walked into St. Augustine and began with a slow stroll through a quiet residential neighbourhood south of the centre and found a series of stately mansions, quaint cottages, southern abodes, all nestled into thick tree canopy with that spooky, yet magnificent Spanish moss reaching down like demon fingers. It reminded us much of Charleson. We passed a school yard swarming with uniformed, perpetual-motion children, a quiet and possibly deserted nunnery, several churches, and Ana spotted a thrift shop hidden at the back of a building, where she picked up a sexy, form-fitting, va-va-voom dress and I browsed the terrifying selection of vinyl (listened to a Jim Neighbours album recently?) then found an equally scary horror novel to feast upon during the upcoming long passages.

Our goal for the return trip to Canada is threefold: make it to NYC before the end of April by doing more offshore runs, explore some of the sights and towns we missed along the way, and revisit places we loved. With that, we visited the Hotel Alcazar building (which had been either closed or packed with touristos last time) and admired the incredible architecture of this Spanish colonial masterpiece and the small antique and art shops along the courtyard. We then moved into the town centre and found the Cuban Café & Bakery, which we patronized last time, but was far more peaceful and enjoyable today with just a handful of customers. This place is authentic Cuban – with Cuban staff, Cuban food and Cuban drinks…but, sadly, American prices. We seated ourselves on the deck overlooking the street and enjoyed our two hot coffees and three warm ham croquettes. This is only the second caffeinated coffee I’ve had during the trip, as I choose to ingest that powerful drug only at special moments. The last one was just a couple weeks ago with our friends in the garden of the brilliant coffee shop at Man-O-War Cay. I derive intense enjoyment of good coffee on these rare occasions and do not look back fondly on the many years I was addicted to it and drank it to feed a dependence instead of relishing in the pure pleasure of the bean. Like many other things in life, with scarcity comes great enjoyment.

Ana and I sat for a very long time talking, mostly about our children, and the exponential growth in maturity and life experience they’ve both experienced the past couple of years. It has been so satisfying for us as parents to see them thriving, taking chances, handling problems, enduring difficulties, traveling, meeting new people, and discovering who they are, what they like, and which of the infinite life paths they will blaze. We are so excited to have them both back at home this summer and looking forward to a lot of lengthy and loud evening meals around our dinner table.

We wandered into the hornet nest of the city centre and while it was still busy with tourists, we found a quiet space – a Greek shrine with the story of the extreme challenges faced by the original European settlers, surrounded by a peaceful garden courtyard. After this, Ana browsed a few shops, we had a chat with the bubbly host at a distillery of flavoured whiskeys, and we walked the perimeter of the 17 century Castillo de San Marcos fort, imagining the 12 pound iron balls exploding from the cannons, ripping holes through the thick wood hulls of invading British ships.

After our self-guided walking tour we returned to the boat for a late lunch then I changed the oil and filter of our trusty 54 horsepower Yanmar as it had been the recommended 250 hours since the last one. This process always takes longer than I think it will and it brought me right to sundowner, where I enjoyed a can of PBR in the cockpit as I finished off the last chapter of a novel. Our original plan had been to return to town to partake in the evening festivities of St. Augustine’s Sail Week, but Ana just wasn’t feeling it so I went in by myself with the used oil to deposit it in the used oil collection drum at the marina, and had a quick look at the goings-on in the Sail Week tent. We weren’t missing much besides a mediocre 80’s cover band, $6 drinks, $12 fish sandwiches, and a lot of sailors wearing fancy clothes (i.e. long pants without rips and shirts without skulls, metal band logos, or stains).

We enjoyed a quiet night on the boat.

Thanksgiving in St. Augustine with Zoltar the Fortune Teller

St. Augustine  –  4 kilometres walked, 2 miles by dinghy

I forced myself to sleep until 8am and I woke up refreshed and ready. Last night John and Becca had reminded us that today was American Thanksgiving so most or nearly all the stores and restaurants in town would be closed today, providing a good opportunity to do some boat maintenance. I changed the engine oil, oil filters, transmission oil, and both the fuel filters while Ana worked on cleaning and fixing up some door handles that weren’t working quite right.

 

With a bag of used filters, a container of spent oil and diesel, and all of our trash, we dinghy'd into the town marina, paid $13 to rent a dock space, and were able to unload it all there, then walked into town, but this time from the other side. What a difference! We immediately came upon the Hotel Alcazar, a magnificent Spanish Renaissance Revival building and, since it was closed, could only peek in through the iron gates to see the lavish courtyard. Across from here was the Ponce de Leon hotel (now a classy liberal arts college) and both of these were built by an insanely wealthy 1800’s industrialist named Henry Flagler. The gardens and rotunda of the college were open to the public so we gawked in astonishment at the incredible terra cotta finishings, marbled floors, elaborately carved wooden pillars – the whole complex was incredible. And it was not packed with tourists. My opinion of St. Augustine has just rocketed up.

 

Ana and I wandered around the historic district for a while and it was easier to admire the many and varied buildings with fewer people around. Many of the buildings had standardized and elegant plaques describing the origin of the structure, architectural highlights, and history of the use of it. I stopped to read many of these. We also dipped into a couple of the arcades which disappeared into the guts of building complexes and these had the predictable shops, but also those cheesy carnival machines – Zoltar the Fortune Teller, Merlin the Mystic, the Love Tester, all of which are now found only in Florida and horror movies.

 

Though there was not much open, we did find a cute Cuban café tucked away off a side street and sat down to enjoy a coffee for Ana and a cold Presidente beer and ham croquette for myself. Every other patron there was Cuban and we enjoyed listening to their sometimes indecipherable rapid-fire Spanish.

 

We cruised back to the boat, had a change of clothes, then dinghy’d over to the nearby Lagoon 42 catamaran, owned by Peter, a German fellow we had met yesterday when he came over to borrow an oil filter wrench, and had invited us for a drink. He and his family were at the end of a year-long sabbatical. His wife and daughter had recently returned to Germany, leaving Peter and his son there, but only Peter was on the boat when we arrived. He invited us aboard and we had a lovely conversation in the luxurious cockpit as we enjoyed a drink, some fresh pineapple we had brought over, and watched the sun slowly sink into the horizon.

 

Back at the boat, we made a lovely Thanksgiving dinner of tuna steaks, green beans, grilled potatoes and salad then watched a bit of tv before calling it a night. Tomorrow would be our final day in this interesting city then we planned to continue our journey south.