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Sea Islands 300 : 06-St. Augustine

Day 3 – Dipping our toes in Florida’s “First Coast”

Links to Chapters in the Series

It’s only a couple of hours from Marineland to the oldest city in the US – St. Augustine – where I will find, finally, a decent hat. A short, easy day. Doug makes another fine breakfast, we wash up, anchor up, and head north.

Trusty WoodenBoat cap works in a pinch.

Soon the linear dredged canal relaxes into winding creeks and marshes, the Matanzas River proper. Drawbridges spring from clusters of houses that appear along the shore more frequently. We enter a patchwork quilt of history loosely stitched together – ruins of colonial era Spanish fortifications, new McMansions next to an old Victorian from 1862 at the start of the Civil War, rustic fish camps from the 1900s, wilderness as it was before Europeans arrived. Every mile under the keel takes us forward or back decades, but the trend is definitely backward in time until we reach St. Augustine.

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Morattico

We spent a few days with friends on the Northern Neck, in the village of Morattico on the Rappahannock. We shared an old farmhouse built in the early 1900s, like many you still find all across Tidewater, with a good dock on a broad and winding tidal creek – perfect for paddling and small boat sailing.

I brought a Melonseed, but it rained the first two days, so didn’t get it in the water. Instead we spent relaxing days on the big wrap-around porch, reading in swinging sofas and doing puzzles. Like the best country homes, there’s as much living space outside as in – outdoor showers, a fire pit, and patios under the trees. In the evenings we went for local oysters at Merroir, and ice cream at flower shop in White Stone.

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Sea Islands 300 : 05-Celestial Wonders

Day 2 – Matanzas River: Nocturnal Spaceships and History of a Massacre

Links to Chapters in the Series

Anchored at Marineland

We eat really well. Doug is a good cook, and likes doing it. All the food for at least three days is stored in a pantry bin of dry goods and a medium Yeti cooler with a bag of ice. He’s been doing this long enough – thousands of miles – that he has a good system down.

That said, space is so tight you have to move two things to get to the one thing you need, then move the two things back so you can get out. It’s like a Rubik’s Cube of gear and supplies. He makes the best of it, for sure.

Once I finish shifting and shuffling and fetching per captain’s needs, I’m free to relax on deck while the cabin becomes the galley, while the steward and chef take over. 

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Sea Islands 300 : 04-Grounded Near Marineland

Day 2 – Aground on the Matanzas River

Links to Chapters in the Series

Modern navigation is a true wonder. Satellite mapping and imagery, GPS, digital charts, crowd-sourced sonar bathymetry, and the shareability of the internet, all make even detailed local knowledge available to anyone. Even with all that, though, reality still imposes limits.

Doug spends many winter nights carefully plotting courses and stopovers using all available tools for the coming season. But even the best information can become stale and outdated before you have a chance to use it. A single storm can change the location of channels and shift shoals overnight. This is especially true in the shallow waters of the southern coast, where sandbars swept by strong tides can snake offshore for 10 miles, and inlets will open and close suddenly in really big storms. 

Pellicer Creek beyond the sandbar

The spot chosen to anchor for the night is a side creek just outside the ditch, just inside the Princess Place Preserve, where a string of small islands separate the ICW from a broad expanse of open water called Pellicer Creek.

Notes in the chart book from other boaters recommend it as a good anchorage, with 6 feet of water outside the channel. Tidings only draws 2 feet with the board up. Easy peezy. But just to be safe, Doug lowers the motor to idle, reducing our speed to around 1 knot. He has me steer between two islands for the open water while he watches the depthfinder.

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Sea Islands 300 : 03-Daytona to Marineland

Day 2 – The Quest and Departure

Links to Chapters in the Series

Relentless sun, a hat that blows away.

Just after daybreak. It’s almost time to shove off and I have to find a hat. It’s technically still Spring, but the sun here is blazing hot, relentless, and I don’t have a good hat. Couldn’t figure out how to pack one in the carryon for the flight. This is my quest, to be completed before breakfast. I have thirty minutes. I will fail. 

Stowage on Tidings is super tight. No room for suitcases, just one collapsable duffel. Everything I can bring for the next three weeks has to fit in a ten gallon cooler box. (And a doctor bag of tech gear, on special dispensation from the captain.) I could not figure out how to pack my favorite straw hat. Figured, “It’s Florida, right? Lots of hats down there. You know, for the tourists.”

Well, yes. But no. Ugly hats. Expensive hats. Expensive ugly hats, yes.

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Sea Islands 300 : 02-Daytona Beach

Day 1 – Cruising the Beach

Links to Chapters in the Series

The airport is only three miles from the harbor, one of the reasons we chose to connect here. Doug meets me and we hail an Uber for the short hop to the marina. It’s still mid April, but the sun is already a white hot glare off asphalt and concrete. Everything looks sun-bleached and pale.

Halifax Marina is a big municipal marina full of big boats. The GDP of a small country is tied up at the docks. He walks me down the gangway to a slip where Tidings is cheerfully holding her own.

We’ll spend the night here on the boat and get an early start in the morning. I get a quick tour of the layout and stow my duffle, then we’re off again – Doug wants to investigate all this fuss about “World Famous Daytona Beach”.

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Sea Islands 300 : 01-Overture

Low Country from Up High
to Daytona Beach

Links to Chapters in the Series

Beaufort, Port Royal Inlet, and Fripp Island from 30,000 feet.

From 30,000 feet I get a preview of what’s to come. The morning flight drops down out of the clouds, and there below is our destination: Beaufort, and a watery world of marshes, winding creeks, and inlets stretching out to the steel blue Atlantic. It’s deceiving from above as it is up close. The sun glints off obvious water and moves over what one would think is land; but the light strikes water there, too. What appears to be land ribboned with creeks is mainly water, as well. The Low Country and Sea Islands of the South. 

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