The Slog

 4/4- St Augustine to Sister’s Creek, Jacksonville 

   We departed St Augustine in time to catch the 8:30 opening at the Bridge of Lions. The tide was with us so we flew through there and down into the inlet until we turned the corner to Vilano Beach. There it was like we threw out an anchor. The current had us going around 3 knots. We had thought we could make Fernandino today which is about 50+ miles. That idea got put to rest pretty quickly. Not only did we have the current against us all day but the wind was , while not quite on the nose, it was close. I had run out the staysail to try to develop some oomph but the track was too twisty and I eventually gave up. We puttered along at around 4 knots most of the day. Of course by the time we neared the next inlet the tide started flooding and we were against it again. It took 7 1/2 hours to go 33 nmiles. 

   Sister’s Creek is a small bump out of the ICW. It is near the St John’s River and has a nice park with docks just across the creek. The current is not too bad here but it will flip the boat around with the turn of the tide. 

   We had been through the areas today on the way down but this time it was interesting because it was low tide. Low tide I usually find more interesting because more things are exposed. The was almost 20 miles of beach that we hadn’t seen before. A lot of the docks on the other side were out of the water. People with boat lifts couldn’t launch their boats for most of today because there was no water under them. It’s also interesting that even in Daytona or Titusville there was no negligible tide. All of a sudden the tide here goes up between 5 and 7 feet. Then once you get out of Georgia the tide relaxes to about 3-4 feet. 

In a completely unrelated subject I think this is the first night I haven’t heard a siren in 3 months. We hear them almost everywhere and in Vero there was a fire station just across the highway. Let’s hope nobody is in need of an emergency vehicle tonight. 

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