We’ve had a somewhat bumpy start to our stay in St
Augustine, quite literally from Thursday night onwards when an approaching
front (a “nor-easter”) arrived bringing grey skies, a drop in temperature and
very rolly seas, even inland on the IntraCoastal Waterway.
There aren’t really any decent anchorages in St Augustine
for boats of our draft so we had reserved in advance a mooring buoy with the
city marina. The marina has two mooring
fields: one north of the Bridge of Lions (very exposed) and one south of the
bridge (far more protected). We’d
requested a buoy in the south field for obvious reasons and, up to 48 hours
before we arrived, had had this confirmed and hence were somewhat disgruntled
on arrival to be sent to the north field.
Thursday night saw winds climbing up to 30knots and waves
forming which had Tumi rock and rolling against her mooring lines and led to a
somewhat sleepless night. We’d booked a
car for the weekend and so were keen to get ashore on Friday morning to collect
it but viewed the dinghy ride with a degree of hesitation in the
conditions. We decided to “risk” it and
so donned full wet weather gear and life jackets for the 300m ride to shore and
made it relatively unscathed.
Later that day we returned to the marina only to find
stronger winds, bigger waves and the prospect of getting wet through on the
journey back to Tumi. But it had to be
done and so once again we suited and booted up and set off. By this time the swells were 3 to 4 feet high
which in a dinghy only 10 feet long is not for the feint hearted. We took it slowly but got absolutely
drenched! The most challenging time came
getting out of the dinghy and back onto Tumi, which was bucking around as
though on the back of a rodeo bull, but we made it and after a hot shower and
glass of wine felt much better. Winds
overnight on Friday were blowing in excess of 40 knots and were forecast to
continue for another 48 hours before starting to abate so we radioed in and
arranged to retreat to the protection of the marina on Saturday morning.
By a stroke of luck, a mooring buoy became available in the
south field on Saturday and so we opted to take that and found life on the
other side of the bridge so much calmer, so from here on, things can
(hopefully) only get better!