Jekyll Island to St Augustine, FL, January 23-24, 2022

      We had, by some bizarre twist of fate, been thrust into the position of being the seasoned old sailors when the boat next to us at the marina turned out to be newer than us.  They had a big family with all cabins occupied so they had no way to use space heaters for the whole boat (there is limited electrical power available at the dock).  We introduced them to our hot water bottles, which were apparently extremely popular with the kids who fought over who got the "cool" ones.  They were also quite anxious about getting off the dock, which is now something that we don't even really think about anymore.  We ended up joining with half the dock handling lines, shouting encouragement and occasionally conflicting advice.  Somehow they managed to get away without problems.  They were planning to go anchor somewhere else for the night before doing a day sail to St Augustine.  We elected to leave just before sunset and just plow through the night to arrive the next morning.

Looking back at the Georgia shore at sunset on our way out.

     You may remember me saying that you have to balance different factors and in order to do a reasonable trip where we leave in daylight and arrive in daylight, leaving near sunset was the only viable option.  The down side of this approach was that this forced us to leave pretty close to low tide.  Remember that when we arrived everyone was asking us how much water we saw and we said it was fine, between 12-15 feet?  Well, we found out why everyone was asking on the way out.  We followed the exact same line we used to enter and actually made it through the part that was indicated as very shallow on our map with no drama whatsoever.  As we continued winding our way out to sea via St Andrew Sound through what was indicated to be quite deep water, things got a whole lot more sketchy.  We were in what was indicated to be slightly deeper water on the outbound course than the path we took in, when we started to see breaking waves ahead in the dwindling light.  As a rule, if the water is shallow enough for waves to break, it is a very bad place to be.  Sure enough, the depth started to drop rapidly down to about 5 feet, which is the limit for Dragonfly in smooth seas and absolutely off-limits in any kind of chop.  I threw the engines into reverse and backed up and slowly picked my way through "deeper" water although we continued to see 7-10 feet.  The sun had pretty much set and you could still see a bit, but not at all well.  It was a very anxious few moments, with Lisa helping me search the waters ahead to avoid anything that looked shallow.  We had to reverse another time a few moments later, when despite the chart indicating that the danger had passed, it certainly had not.  Perhaps the big storm that came in earlier in the week had moved the sand around, because we were seeing shallow where we had a lot of water coming in.  It was an enormous relief when we finally made it out to open ocean and deep water.

     It is my practice to study our planned course on two different maps (because different charts say different things) and this particular entrance did have a note saying "The entrance to the sound is subject to frequent changes and some buoys are not charted as they are frequently shifted in position."  This isn't that alarming because a similar note exists for most inlets.  After our misadventure, I looked up the inlet on yet another different chart and it said "the Coast Guard removed the buoys because they don't want people using this inlet because of shoals" and a commenter said "St Andrews is a notorious inlet as stated all buoys removed as it has constantly shifting shoals. Local knowledge only use."  Had I seen either of those comments I certainly would not have tried to cross it at high or low tide and I felt really stupid to have done so at low tide.  After this lesson, I now review 4 different sets of charts and make sure I check all the Coast Guard notes.  I feel quite lucky to have learned this lesson with only some adrenaline and not having to hire someone to pull me off the bottom. There is another way out that could have been taken by following the ICW down to Saint Mary's and that is what I should have done, even if it cost a little more time.

     Thankfully, that was to be the only lesson learned on the voyage.  The rest of the overnight passage was uneventful.  We had to dodge a few big cargo ships floating around waiting for their turn at the dock, but that is now pretty routine for us.  It was a bit tricky because we needed to go slower than usual and there wasn't enough wind to sail, so we were running with one engine turned down low.  Seas were a bit lumpy and made worse by going so slow.  Our usual practice is for Lisa to go to sleep early and I stay up as late as I can or she wakes up, which is usually between midnight and 3am.  She then takes the dead of night and I normally wake up with the sun at 6 or so and she'll take a short nap before we arrive.  In this case, we were almost in to St Augustine by the time she finished her nap, so we had to hustle to get the fenders and lines ready to dock.  My stress from the outbound channel was rewarded with good karma when someone coming out of St Augustine hailed me on the radio as I was heading in to ask if I was familiar with the inlet.  When I said it was my first time, he directed me to the best approach and said they had just recently moved the channel around.  I'm pretty sure I'd have found the buoys, since it was very well marked, but I was very happy to have a guide point it out on the radio. 

 Dragonfly chilling on the dock as seen from the drawbridge.

     It was also our first time ordering a drawbridge opening which I found oddly stressful.  I wrote a note about the bridge name and the schedule and their VHF channel and rehearsed what I would say to them in my head, which all seems funny to me now.  The operator was very nice and the whole process was painless and easy.  The marina was a pain in the butt, declaring that we there too early and that under no circumstances could we wait on the fuel dock, that we would have to motor around and come back later.  However, I had already tipped the guy on the fuel dock well and when I got back I asked him if he minded if I walked over to check out my new slip first.  I walked very slowly!  By the time I got back I told him to shout if he needed me to move and he said not to worry about it, so I stayed on the fuel dock until our slip opened up anyhow.  The really stupid thing is that we actually had room to squeeze in between the two boats that were tied up there and that is what eventually ended up doing, so we could have moved there as soon as we arrived.  It was a tight fit, but I've grown pretty cocky in my ability to squeeze into tight spots, since my home marina is pretty challenging in that regard and I've had lots of practice.