Day 205
A short travel day in store for us on Saturday, 04/03/21, from Palm Coast Marina in Palm Coast, FL, to St. Augustine Municipal Marina in St. Augustine, FL, we departed Palm Coast later than usual, at 9:45 am. Although sunny, the weather was still very windy and COLD. We realized that the weather forecasters were one day ahead of reality. They had forecast high winds on Thursday and Friday, then calming on Saturday. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), those forecasts and reality did not sync-up. ☹ Thursday turned out to be fairly calm, with the winds becoming high on Friday and Saturday, then calmer on Sunday. So, we had a short but WINDY trip up the AICW on 04/03/21. Dressed in our winter boating clothes, we left Palm Coast Marina in Legacy’s wake. Our looping friends on Radian Journey, the Parrishes, own a house in Palm Coast to which they eventually plan to retire once they’ve finished traveling. From what we saw, Palm Coast is a nice, very pretty, and affordable part of coastal Florida in which to live.
As we traveled north up the ICW, we were still on the Matanzas River. Just as before, we cruised out of “civilized” areas and into wilderness, through Washington Oaks Gardens State Park. Even though we were fine (just a little bumpy), we couldn’t get over the strength of the winds this day. When you are seeing white-caps INSIDE the ICW, that’s never the best sign.
We cruised (blew) past the Summer Island Community, on a narrow strip of land where houses face the Atlantic Ocean and back up to the ICW, where we were traveling. Imagine living where water is visible out your front door AND out your back door, simultaneously! Wouldn’t that be dreamy? 😊 Periodically, we were able to see between some of these houses over into the Atlantic. The size of the waves we saw out there in the ocean made us realize just how fortunate we were to be traveling on the protected ICW, rather than battling the big seas just east of us.
Legacy cruised past the location of the Fort Matanzas National Monument, but we were unable to see the monument itself from our vantage point. On such a windy day, the idea of trying to anchor Legacy and take the dinghy over to tour the monument was out of the question. So we had to miss it and cruised on up underneath the Crescent Beach Bridge, past Crescent Beach, Butler Beach, and into St. Augustine Shores.
We passed by St. Augustine South to our west and Anastasia Island on the ocean (east) side. Once we passed Lincolnville, FL, we were into St. Augustine proper. St. Augustine Municipal Marina is just south of the Bridge of Lions, which crosses the ICW. After obtaining marina entry instructions from the dock master, we “blew” over to our slip and got into it without too much difficulty at about 12:45 pm. It’s never fun or easy entering or leaving a marina in too much wind, as we learned the hard way down at Stock Island Marina Village in Key West, back in late December! 😐
Once we were all tied-up and connected, we set out to visit the beautiful city of St. Augustine, which was right there next to our marina. We’d not been too upset about cutting our time there short, since we’d recently visited St. Augustine by car back in June of 2020 when we’d driven down to change our state of residence and gotten our new FL driver’s licenses. BUT, what we didn’t realize is that the portion of St. Augustine we’d seen on the earlier trip had been along the beach – a different side of St. Augustine than this lovely downtown area. We crammed as much walking and sight-seeing into the afternoon and evening as we could, but both lamented we could’ve used another full day to more adequately explore the area.
We walked to the very busy La Herencia Café for drinks, ceviche and empanadas. YUM! It suddenly dawned on me that dogs are EVERYWHERE now. Restaurants, shopping areas, tourist attractions, you name it. I looked it up online and it’s not just my imagination. Things definitely have gone to the dogs. The sites I saw online indicate it’s due to everyone now thinking their dog is a “service dog”, but I think it might also be due to COVID running everyone outside, where it’s easier to have your dog with you(?) Who knows – maybe all the stresses and inconveniences of COVID regulations have convinced people that they NEED a service dog(?) As stressed as the whole mess has made me, if we weren’t currently living aboard a boat, I think having a service dog of my own would be in order! 😐
Later that evening, we walked to Forgotten Tonic Tavern and Bottleshop for happy hour drinks and snacks that would suffice as our dinner, before more walking around and eventually returning to our boat for the evening. Much as we hate to admit it, we’re finding we’ve apparently reached the age that eating dinner earlier in the evening (like 4:30 or 5:00 pm) makes for much better sleeping that night. UGH… I used to make fun of my mom and stepdad for eating that early! Paybacks can be hell…
Position: N 29° 53.515, W 81° 18.539
Distance traveled: 25 SM
Total distance traveled: 2879 SM
Total marina nights: 183
Total nights at anchor: 21
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27