Tough anchorage, great city
Trip Start
Dec 01, 2007
1
23
35
Trip End
May 31, 2008
St Augustine beach,
Florida,
United States
Sunday, April 20, 2008
In the morning, we made our way up the waterway and came upon StA near the Bridge of Lions. There was a new bridge being built and there was a collection of cranes and badges supporting this effort. Even seeing the way through the new span was difficult. So we decided to anchor in the harbor south of the bridge despite warnings of rapid currents and bottom debris that could foul an anchor. A fouled anchor has always been one of fears in boating....you drop the hook easy enough, but when you try to raise it its stuck...fouled....I hack saw the chain and the anchor is lost. This would be a bad day as not only is a anchor and chain expensive (maybe a grand on our boat) but it could hold us up for days. But in looking at the anchorage, we saw dozens of boats so we give it a try. In fact it was hard to find a spot and we ended up having to work hard to find a spot in suitable water.
By noon we have the anchor down, drop the dink and motor in under fairly high winds and a strong current. When we go into a city like this, we often dont know where to tie up the dink. We head for StA City Marina and find a dinghy dock. After forking over a ten spot to tie up....(IMO that's a lot of dough to tie up your small boat) we walk into the old city to explore. We find the country's oldest city dating back to the 1500s. We paw around a few old shops and walk the cobblestone streets.
Our plan was to have a nice lunch ashore and then resume our trek north in the afternoon. But things always chance. We ended having a great lunch at the famous Columbia Cuban restaurant based in Tampa. Hey, this was really good and we noted that the town had a lot to offer.
Now, some complain that historical cites like this have become too commercial. Its true. StA and its criss- crossed cobble stone streets had a strange resemblance to our trip to Epcot in Orlando. We have seen this around the world in various places. In order to preserve the 'old city', the places have to be built up with restaurants, bars and the dreaded shops. This is not exception. But as we walked the place we began to see how good a job city planners had done. It was nice quality and we saw lots of good looking restaurants bars.
So maybe we stay the night....ok. But I had not run the generator enough that morning to allow us to have enough battery capacity to keep the boat up until morning. So we dink back to First Forty and start the gen-set expecting to come back in. It wasn't long before we see how the other boats around us are riding. Since StA has nearly a 6 foot tide the current flow is big. All of a sudden I note the wind and current are opposing and boats in the anchorage are moving around in crazy ways. Boats tend to move based on wind and current but it can very widely based on their under-body and vintage. Normally its advisable to try to anchor near like vessels, but its hardly practical. Now we happened to note that a light, 36 foot, sailboat was moving all around and seemingly adrift....it was getting dangerously close to slamming into First Forty! We were not the only ones watching this as the boat just downwind looked like it could be crashing into them. No one was on board.
I hailed the downwind boat and was told the had reported it to the harbor master. I called to and was told "oh well', we dont police that. Some places we go the harbor police are like Gestapo and other places they could care less. This was the latter.
So we felt compelled to move about 530 that afternoon. After a couple of tense moments getting through the bridge construction, we anchored just north of the bridge in much safer water. Boats we more distributed and we felt safer about the whole thing.
So that evening and the next, we stayed in StA seeing more of the quaint city and hearing music acts at a great "dive" of a bar called the "Tropical Lounge". It was not as bad (good) as the Green Parrot in Key West but it was a lot of fun. They had three musical acts from country rock to hard rock and we enjoyed going out very much. Two dollar pints were a big plus but the music was the main draw.
The next day we had a great time touring the Lightner Museum. This was truly one of the more unusual and quality museums have visited while cruising. It represented a collection of thousands of practical and art objects from the gilded age of the industrial revolution. The half our demo of early 20th century musical devices such as player pianos, nickelodeons and music boxes was worth the price of admission alone. It was great. A terrific stop.
So after three days and two fun nights were were ready to go on Sunday morning. The weather had turned clear, and winds were light. We decided that it was time for that offshore passage we had talked of for weeks. At 0730 we head out the anchorage for the StA inlet and the open sea leaving behind a nice city and three good days.
