After the two recent prop incidents, it was nice to have our second day of traveling with NO INCIDENTS!
Brunswick Landing is a great marina and the largest one we have visited with over 300 slips in a well protected hurricane hole.
We had wonderful dinner at Reid’s Apothecary to celebrate Ellen’s birthday.
We met a lovely couple that were in the slip next to us, Ilya and Zuby who are traveling on a beautiful 55 foot Nordhavn. We attended the social that the marina held with them and very much enjoyed spending time with them. We ended the evening with delicious garlic knots and pizza at Fox’s Pizza.
Zuby baked us some delicious cookies for our trip the following day!
We had a nice calm day for traveling. A few pictures as we were leaving St. Augustine:
Bridge of Lions – St. AugustineSt. AugustineCastillo de San Marcus
When we docked at Fernandina, the starboard engine would not shut down. This is when we learned that the only way to shut off a diesel engine is to cut off its fuel. After what seemed like an hour and with the help of several other boat owners, we got the engine to shut down. During the scramble, one of the men helping us put his hand in the wrong spot and ended up in the ER. He ended up with two broken fingers and some deep cuts. When we saw him the next morning, he could not have been nicer and actually apologized to US for the mishap. It turns out we need a new fuel cut off solenoid which, of course, could not be locally sourced and will have to be ordered. In the meantime, Kevin is manually turning off the fuel to the starboard engine each time we stop.
Fernandina is a lovely town with a beautiful downtown district with a lot of nice restaurants and shops and definitely a place where we would like to return one day for a longer visit. We enjoyed an informative trolly ride around the northern end of the island.
Fort Clinch State Park is definitely a place we would like to come back and visit and are sorry we were not able to visit this time. There are bike and hiking trails, a beach and Fort Clinch. The best we could do this time was pictures as we were leaving the island.
Fort Clinch
We really wanted to visit Cumberland Island and had planned to dingy there from the Marina but, after being told we could stay another night, we were told that our spot was needed for someone else. The MTOA is currently having their Rendezvous here so we have to move on.
It was so nice to be back on the water today after a week in the marina waiting for the props to be repaired. We saw so many dolphin frolicking in the water. I think the winds the day after we arrived in St. Augustine were the highest we’ve seen at 15-25 knots with gusts up to 35 knots so we were certainly glad to be tied up in the marina.
As we were traveling to St. Augustine and in the middle of a deep channel we felt a bump but nothing was visible in the water before or after. We decided it would be best to have a diver take a look and, sure enough, there was slight damage to one of the props so we had the props pulled for repair, again! Kevin decided to also purchase a new set of props so that we will have a spare set on board. Certainly once we have spares we won’t need them!
We had a lovely evening with Maggie and Bruce from Currently and Chris from Taylor’d for Two. We had a not so great dinner at a Mexican restaurant, walked around downtown St. Augustine, had a drink on the rooftop of Casa Reina restaurant and visited Ron on Flying Colors.
After having the props removed, we had missed the weekly pick up from the place in Bradenton where we were sending them for repairs so we rented a car to drive them over there and then drove home to Atlanta for a few days. That was a long 14 hour trip!
Once we were back in St. Augustine, we were happy to see that our friends Pam and Hank from Slainte had arrived at River’s Edge Marina. We had a delicious dinner with them at Sainte-George.
Sainte-George restaurant with Pam and Hank. Castillo de San Marcos in the background.
We rented another car to go pick up the new props – have we put more miles on cars than on the boat?! The diver installed the props and we were once again ready to resume our trip!
2 hours 28 minutes underway and 1 hour not underway
10-15 mph winds
It was all going so well…..until it wasn’t. We were enjoying our departure from New Smyrna Beach and heading to Palm Coast when, all of a sudden, we found ourselves stuck on a shoal at Ponce Inlet beside the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse. This is apparently an all too common occurrence for boaters in this area as, we learned later, this is an area notorious for extreme shoaling that changes frequently. We ultimately decided we should call for a tow. In the meantime, although tide was starting to come in, we did not want to drift into even shallower waters ahead of us so we decided to drop the anchor. The only problem with this was that the windlass wasn’t working! Thankfully, we had a spare anchor which we were able to drop. As we were on the phone with Boat US to schedule a tow, we saw a Sea Tow boat heading our way and radioed the captain for assistance. The Sea Tow captain could not have been any nicer or more helpful and got us back into deeper water. At first, everything seemed to be okay – the engines and rudder seemed to be working fine – but once we got up over about 1,100 rpm we experienced a good bit of vibration so we decided it would be best to stop in Daytona and have the props checked out rather than continuing on to Palm Coast (about 5 miles vs about 35 miles). We made arrangements with a marina in Daytona and took it slow until we got there.
Once we were safely docked in the marina, Kevin noticed a leak coming from the stuffing box in the engine room but he was able to troubleshoot over the phone with a mechanic and had that fixed in no time. He also discovered the windlass hadn’t worked because the circuit breaker needed to be reset.
Divers were able to come the next day and remove the props without us having to be hauled out. The props did have a little damage which is what was causing the vibration but, thankfully, they were able to be repaired.
While this was an unfortunate experience, it is also something that happens to just about everyone at one time or another. There is a saying that, if someone says they have never run aground, they have either never left the dock, haven’t been boating long enough or they aren’t being truthful! Another saying is “If you haven’t run aground, you ain’t been around”.
Ponce Inlet Lighthouse
We rented a car while we were waiting for the props to be repaired. We enjoyed a leisurely drive up A1A to St. Augustine and stopped at the marina where will will eventually bring the boat and had lunch at the onsite restaurant, Hurricane Patty’s, which has an amazing crab dip! We decided to drive back to St. Augustine the next day when we would have more time for exploring. We have both been to St. Augustine many times but neither of us had been there for about 20 years so it was nice for both of us to be there again and relive old memories. There is so much to do in St. Augustine, the oldest city in the US. We did not feel the need to revisit most of the attractions that we had already seen multiple times in the past but it was nice to see that things had not changed much since we were both there last.
We had an amazing brunch at Sainte-George restaurant which had been recommended to us by our friends from Marathon, Leslie and Hal. We sat on the balcony overlooking Castillo Drive which runs along Matanzas Bay had had a wonderful view of the old city gates, the fort and the bay. We walked along St. George street after brunch. A favorite attraction for both of us from our past trips to St. Augustine was Castillo de San Marcus, the nation’s oldest masonry fort, so we decided we would like to tour that again.
Construction of the fort by the Spanish began in 1672 and was completed in 1695. The fort was occupied by Spain (twice) and Great Britain before both Union and Confederate US forces assumed possession and it was ultimately used as a military prison. Control of the fort was transferred each time via treaty rather than by force. The fort came under fire many times but was never captured as it was built of coquina (light and porous mixture of shell fragments). If a cannonball was able to penetrate the walls of the fort, the holes were easily repaired and coquina was also impervious to fire.
City Gate with Sainte-George restaurant behind and to the left.Castillo de San Marcus
On our way back to the marina in Daytona, we stopped at the Holly Hill Arts Festival.
