We’d both been looking forward to our visit to St Augustine having heard a lot of good things about it. The only negative seemed to be the viability of the St Augustine inlet for our passage, notorious for shoaling and breaking waves, so we (I, Debra) were viewing it with a degree of trepidation, but we obtained a copy of the most recent dredging survey and spoke to the TowBoatUS people and decided to give it a go, making sure we would arrive in calm conditions on a rising tide and in daylight. This meant us leaving Fernandina Beach a day or two before we probably wanted to but looking at the weather forecast we didn’t really have a lot of choice. So we got up at 1.30am on Wednesday to leave Fernandina on an ebb tide and arrive at St Augustine 10 hours later. Typically what wind there was came from on the nose so we had to motor the whole way but we rather that than high winds and seas.
Having now been in St Augustine for two days we’re pretty disappointed in the town itself. Whilst there is a lot of history here (Spanish in the main) and some attractive buildings it is incredibly touristy in the downtown area so not really our scene, but the weather has blown up again and so it won’t be sensible to leave until early next week. We did visit the local distillery this morning where they produce gin, vodka, rum and bourbon and that was interesting and we’ve hired a rental car for the weekend to explore the area a little further afield which should be good. We’ll report in before we leave .....