Christmas in St. Augustine, Florida

[Hilde's log]

Tomorrow we leave St. Augustine for parts south, but not far. We will be aiming for the Matanzas River, about 15 miles from here. Anchorages are not plentiful between St. Augustine and Daytona. One was close, one was far – so we just decided to take it easy and go to the closer one tomorrow and the farther one the day after, rather than making a forced march to the farther anchorage.

The weather has finally relented and turned beautiful, after about three days of cold, oppressive, overcast skies, and strong winds. How dismal it was for me to be trapped below on the lunging boat, with the wind shrieking in the rigging. Depressed and grouchy, I was no fun to live with.

We did manage to dinghy in to shore in the dark for the 7 pm Christmas Eve service at the local Episcopal Church. It was a lovely, if cold, ride across the anchorage. I sat in the bow, holding the flashlight and looking at the liquid reflection of the lights on shore spill across the black water. The dinghy doesn’t have a mast with a steaming light, so I hold the flashlight and pretend to be a mast. We joked that we must be the only people we knew who were taking a dinghy to Christmas Eve services. The church was full of people and poinsettias and the hymns were familiar, but I surely did miss the warmth and friendliness of Christ Church in New Bern, which has been our church home for the last year.

Christmas was celebrated with a big meal made from the last of our fresh vegetables (roasted carrots, brussels sprouts, and parsnips), plus mashed potatoes and gravy and a can of potted beef. Dinner was topped off with a dessert of packaged cake that I bought at Big Lots back in New Bern. All we lacked was the Yorkshire pudding, but it’s too much trouble for too little reward as far as I’m concerned.

Finally, the weather turned and we were able to get out for more than the soggy slog to shore to walk the dog, walking all over the “ancient city” (St. Augustine is the oldest city in the U.S., established by Spain in 1545), up and down narrow cobbled streets past all sorts of architectural marvels and past every sort of shop. There are cathedrals, mansions, forts, European style homes with their outer walls flush with the street, and all sorts of inns, pubs, and bed and breakfasts. The greenery is tropical, with palms and St. Augustine grass (!), not to mention enormous trees draped with beards of Spanish moss. In short, it looks a lot like Old San Antonio. We enjoyed a sampler of local brews at an ale shop and wolfed down English pub fare (and more ale) at a pub. We walked over two miles to the Sailor’s Exchange, a store we have wanted to see since our first stop in Key West almost two years ago – only to find they were closed for the holidays. I found Caitlin’s birthday present at an alpaca store full of clothing and rugs. We dodged tourists from all over the globe. Mostly these long walks were doggy walks, since Schnitzel’s idea of a good time is to sniff and leave p-mails all over town.

We anchored in the river and paid $10 a day for the use of the city marina facilities – dinghy dock, trash disposal, showers, and laundry facilities. These reasonable rates gave us access to really nice facilities. The monthly fees here for a slip at the docks are not cheap ($13.50 a foot), but then it is St. Augustine, which is both right on the Atlantic and right on the ICW. We’ve met a few folks here this week, but not a lot. We’re in a city again, and I’m no longer used to folks ignoring each other as a way of life. It’s not cold, it’s just indifferent, and very weird after a year in friendly New Bern.

Tonight we have pulled out the boxes in the quarterberth to examine the country flags given to us by Raven’s previous owner, a very well traveled gent. We found 16 different flags, which was exciting, even though at the moment we only plan to use one of them (the Bahamas). I can hardly wait to run a courtesy flag up the rigging by our tattered old Texas flag as we slide into port. My guess is that we will have to fly the Texas flag a bit lower or risk insulting folks who don’t know Texas’ history as a sovereign nation. I don’t want to annoy people whose language I don’t speak. We’ve also come across a cruising guide to the tropics that covers such things as coral reefs and tropical climes, so I think we’ve found our bedtime book for the next month.

On the outside, Beaufort, SC to St. Augustine, FL

[Hilde's log]

Raven has arrived safely in St. Augustine. She wove her way through the channel yesterday about noon, after a great passage on the outside from Beaufort, SC. We were blessed with calm, warm weather, light winds, and mostly clear skies for the entire 36 hour trip. We got up in the dark Wednesday morning, indulged in a cup of tea, and took Schnitzel ashore for a farewell pee before pushing off just after dawn, about 6:45. Raven flew down the Beaufort River and Port Royal Sound at over 7 knots, with the help of a three-knot current, popping out into the Atlantic around 10 a.m. The sea was flat and blue, the skies clear, and the wind nonexistent, making for good motoring and no sailing. Actually, that was a good thing, saving us from wind chill. David and I enjoyed so much being out in the “big blue circle” again, after a year inside. “Just the right amount of trees,” I remarked, glorying in being able to see to the horizon in all directions. The trip was so tame, I was able to cook almost as well as on the ICW, though “cook” is stretching it. Let’s just say I am getting really good at combining cans.

Tip for those of you out there who are stuck eating canned vegetables (ick, ick, ick): if you drain the can of vegetables and add the drained contents to some good soup, the taste is overwhelmingly of soup, and the vegetables add their bulk to stretch the servings. I remain unconvinced that canned vegetables add any nutrition to one’s diet, but maybe I am just a taste snob. Actually, after a cold morning’s run, we don’t fuss about what kind of food is available, as long as it’s hot and there’s enough of it. We eat at such weird hours on a passage. Wednesday we had tea at 6 a.m., breakfast sandwiches about 8, soup at 11:30, stew at 3, and soup again around 7, with chocolate bars, oranges, apples, tea, coffee, crackers, cheese, and hot punch scattered throughout the day. It’s a wonder we don’t weigh 300 pounds each!

The hot water bottles saved my life on my overnight watches. It really wasn’t cold, temperature-wise, hovering in the high 50s and low 60s as we drifted south. But I have found that even moderate cold can seep into my bones over the course of the night, chilling me dangerously close to hypothermia, so I am really paranoid about staying warm. This time, I had good foul weather gear (Gill) over 3 layers of clothes, and my feet were snug in rubber boots. The hot water bottles alternated between my back and on my lap and kept me toasty in between hopping up to check the horizon. David and I tried one hour watches which worked well for me. Late in the evening we did a couple of two hour stretches so each of us could catch more than 30 minutes’ shut-eye down below. We enjoyed being able to stretch out in the v-berth for those longer naps. On our voyage last year the v-berth was crammed with boxes; this year we have stuff stowed all over the place, but the v-berth remains our bedroom and that’s a huge improvement. In the calm water, it felt like sleeping in a cradle, rocking gently, with the slop, slop, slop of the waves against the hull. We’ll see what it’s like in rougher water…I may migrate back to the salon in questionable weather.

The scenery was spectacular during the night. First came a glorious sunset as the sun spilled pink and gold bands across the surface of the dark green water (see photo). A mist rolled in from the edges of the horizon, purple at the surface of the water. The moon shone through the mist above us, looking like a bright headlight in thick fog and unfortunately having the same effect on visibility. Later in the night, we were followed by an enormous “God’s eye” filling the sky above us – the moon at the center of a crystal clear circle of night sky rimmed by a ring of frozen ice crystals. As she set, about 3 am, she passed through layer upon layer of dark clouds, weaving in and out of them like a bright shuttle on a weaver’s loom. After moonset, the clouds dissipated and the stars took over, glinting above us in the black sky. I was on watch at my favorite time of day, when the morning star rises just before dawn, trailing a pale shimmer of starshine over the water.

The coming of day is a joyous occasion! Mysterious lights resolve themselves into fishing boats, tankers, and shoreline and I can put away the binocs and the bearing gun and relax behind the wheel. Daylight showed us the busy outline of Jacksonville, FL to starboard and sunrise to port. We had coffee and comforted ourselves that the entrance to St. Augustine was fairly close and we’d reach it in the daylight. Circling all night in front of an entrance that we’ve timed badly is not something we like to do, as you can imagine.

We dropped the hook in the harbor and put on the tea kettle, ecstatic to be baking in the sun – yes, baking! Just then, we saw friends from New Bern motor by, headed to the fuel dock. We hailed Cygnet on the VHF, amazed that we’d see someone we knew just minutes after arriving. Not ten minutes later, we were hailed by a dinghy carrying friends we had met at Pipeline Canal on Worth W8N4 (Worth Waiting For). We spent a lovely evening with them on their boat before returning to Raven to snatch a bite to eat and fall into bed.

Alas, it was not to be. The y-valve to the head broke off and David got to spend an hour doing some very smelly and messy plumbing. We finally made it to bed about 9, but were awakened at 2 a.m. by strong winds and rain thundering through in an unexpected storm. It wasn’t bad, as storms go, but our anchor chained rubbed hard against the bow roller, sounding a lot like someone dragging a very heavy desk over cobblestones, making it impossible to relax, much less sleep. So we got up, David to check the anchor and me to wash the dishes I’d left out when we had collapsed into bed earlier. We got back to sleep around 3:30, and woke this morning about 8 to bright blue skies, gusty winds, and NOAA’s promise of high 70s later this afternoon and winds decreasing to 5-10 knots. Ha. The clouds rolled back in, the temperatures remained in the 60s, and the wind has rattled the rigging for hours now, at about 20-25 knots.

We dinghied in to shore this afternoon, Schnitzel crazed with excitement to be on land again after three long days on board. We walked some of the downtown, window shopping and people looking. St. Augustine has some beautiful Spanish style architecture downtown, and the Episcopal church bells were belting out seasonal hymns, making us feel at home. We plan to do some sightseeing on the tour coach while we’re here so cross your fingers that the sun comes out.

Here’s a reason to celebrate – it’s the Winter Solstice, and from today forward the days will be getting longer and longer, minute by minute. Add that to the warmer temperatures we are anticipating and you know things are looking up for Raven and crew.

By the way, thanks so much to our friend Paul who offers the spelling “coaming” for the…uh…coaming. He’s ex-Navy, so I’m going to go with his spelling. Microsoft spell check thinks he’s nuts.

We send our best wishes to all of you for a blessed holiday season and the very best of new years, bringing each of you your heart’s desire.