We left the comfort of Fernandina Marina and the vast restaurant selection of Fernandina Beach behind. The next big stop was St. Augustine, but we stopped for a couple of evenings en route. There are six more ICW bridges to pass under to get to St. Augustine.
First stop south was the public dock at Sisters Creek, if there was room. This run required us to go under our second ICW bridge. Each bridge is a butt pucker experience. We should have at least a full one-foot of clearance between our 64-foot high mast and the bottom of the steel bridge. The passage under Sisters was successful.
From Sister’s Creek, we headed to a little anchorage call Pine Island South. There were five butt pucker bridges to pass under. We timed the passes at as low of tide as possible for the 20-mile leg. Again, we succeeded at not making any contact with any of the bridges. The anchorage was empty, quiet, shallow, and bug free until around sunset.
Remember the gallon of coolant Mary found under the engine? Well, we’d been noticing a few coolant stains showing up after each run. Not good.
The last run from Pine Island to St. Augustine was about 9 miles, and only one more ICW bridge. The pucker was relaxing. But we were not being complacent. We were still timing bridges for the lowest tide possible.
We had a reservation for a mooring for three days. We thought better of that and changed to one night mooring and two glorious nights tied up in the municipal marina. Flush toilets, hot showers, and delicious restaurants, all available and just a short walk from our slip instead of a dinghy ride from the mooring.
We also called our mechanic about the coolant leak. We determined that we needed this fixed. Sadly, we decided our next big stop would be back up north to get the leak fixed. Six, maybe seven bridges… again. Pucker up!
1600 HP
Sailing YO-D-YO 