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We passed Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach today on our way South.   In spite of adverse current for much of the day we made over 60 miles today.  When we struck out I noticed a helping current for the first time in 3 days….. that lasted a full 600 yards until we rejoined the ICW.  Between Jacksonville and Titusville… apparently the ICW flows North all the time…..  This morning I was motorsailing to beat the band… and a butterfly passed me……   that’s right!  Now he was smart, he drafted me on the low side to pass… but he did it!  That was disheartening.

After lunch we entered Indian River, where the ICW is wide, the current didn’t effect us as much and the winds that were there could be better used.  More on the day’s trip later, I’m about to go stretch out my back… but we motorsailed sun up to sun down for our longest day yet.  The second half of the day we held close to 7 knots and stacked up the miles.

More later…. Rusty

You can not visit St Augustine without hearing the name Henry Flager. His influence and love of the city is pervasive so I thought for those fellow history enthusist such as myself, I would share a little of what I learned about Henry Flager.

Henry Flager was born in New York in 1830, made and lost his fortune the first time in the grain industry. Mr. Flager made his fortune the second time by being a founding partner, along with John D Rockefeller, and “the brains” behind Standard Oil (now known as Exxon and Mobil).  Standard Oil was the largest and most profitable corporation in the world for more than a century.

As successful as Mr Flager’s professional life was, his personal life was fraught with great personal sorrow.  He married Mary Harkness in 1852 and their first child, Jennie Louise, was born in 1855.  Jennie died during childbirth at the age of 34.  The child did not survive. Grief stricken, Flager engaged over a thousand workers who worked around the clock to construct the Presbyterian church in St Augustine as a memorial to Jennie.  The church was completed in a little over 300 days as planned so a memorial serve could be conducted on the 1st anniversary of his daughters death.  Mary and Henry’s second child, Carrie, was born in 1858 but died at three years of age.  Henry had one surviving child, a son born in 1870.

Mary had health issues for many years and in an effort to improve her health the Flager’s spent the summer of 1878 in Jacksonville Fla. They loved the town but found transportation and hotel accommodations inadequate. Mary’s health did not improve and she died in May of 1878.  Two years later he married Ida Shourds and spent their honeymooned in St Augustine and again loved the city but found accommodations lacking.  Ida suffered from a mental illness and eventually had to enter an asylum in 1895.  He married Mary Kenan in 1901 and moved to Palm Beach where he continued his projects….but that story is for another day.

Henry saw great potential in Florida with it’s temperate climate as a huge tourist state.  Flager left his active role in Standard Oil and his love affair and development of Florida began and continued until his death in at the age of 83.

Flager’s first project was the 540 room luxury hotel the Ponce de Leon.  It was built in the Spanish Renaissance Style which would influence the future architecture in St Augustine.  He hired Louis C Tiffany to decorate the interior of the hotel.  Tiffany’s work can be seen in several of Flager’s projects.  The Flager estate houses the largest “still installed” tiffany windows in existence today.   The appraised value of the windows is 38 million dollars.  In 1968 this famously successful hotel became the centerpiece of the newly formed Flager College, nestled in the middle of the historic district of St Augustine. Flager recognized the need for transportation to his hotels so he purchased the Jacksonville – St Augustine and Hailfax Railroad that would eventually become Florida East Coast Railway.  You could board in New York and 36 hours later be out of the snow and in Florida.

Flager was also known for being responsible for building two other churches in the historic district of St Augustine.  Flager wanted the property that the Methodist Church was sitting on for a hotel so he approached the church and said he would build them another church on another site, which he did.  The Baptist apparently thought “well he helped the Methodist, maybe he will help us”.  He did but with stipulations.  He gave them $10,000 which they had to match and had to complete the building project in one year.  One last stipulation was they could build a bell tower if they wanted, but they could never put a bell in it.   All three churches, the Presbyterian, the Methodist and the Baptist, were all within blocks of each other and Flager did want the Baptist bell to conflict with the massive tube organ in his monument to his daughter Jennie, the Presbyterian Church.

We have been here in St Augustine now for two days and will be leaving with a strong desire to return.  I was totally unprepared for the enchanting qualities of this historical city.  We took a slip, which for us is a rarity, but it proved to be such a good decision.  The St Augustine Municipal Marina is clean, well-ran, well-equipted and extraordinarily friendly, a quality we found greeted us at every corner.  The eagerness to be helpful and engaging seemed almost contagious.  For example, today on the train tour, in less than two hours we had lunch with a lady who invited us to dock at her home on the water in Annapolis and enjoyed a wine tasting with the owners of Flats Fishing Co  from Talleshasse Florida who invited us to be their guest on a fishing trip.  We exchanged emails and have every intention of reconnecting with these new “friends”.  I will be back!  The next post will include photos and a short history lesson.

Sea Yawl Later!

Linda

SYL tied up in slip 44 at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina just after 1PM florida time.   We thought about taking a mooring ball, but we want to see the town tonight so stepping off the dock is favorable to a windy dinghy ride.  GOOD choice… the people and facility here are both superb.  Large concrete floating docks, very helpful and knowledgeable marina personel….  every one I have met welcomed us to St. Augustine and offered assistance.  You can tell right away if “there is a light on” inside someones brain when you first meet them.  To explain my point…. the far end of the spectrum would be the large teenage girl that takes your money at KFC.  Normally she cares a hundred times less about your life than she does the itch shes scratching behind her ear with her greasy fingers……  the lights are “OFF” if you know what I mean.  No matter what you say or do… you cannot affect that persons life.  I’m just saying… some people are on, some are off to the outside world…. here they are ON!  In St. Augustine everybody we have met so far.. even the guys fishing next door in a bass boat have been absolutely gracious.

The North wind is blowing today.   We left Pine Island with a slight 1 knot or less counter current in the ICW but a 6 to 10 knot cold North wind behind us.  With only 14 miles to go I drew out the jib and ran one engine.  We managed just under 5 knots… good enough as we piddled around waiting on the current to switch…. our jib cancelled out the slow Northbound current nicely.   The “Bridge of Lions” marking St. Augustine’s town center opens on the half hour so we meandered below the bridge for 20 minutes waiting for the 1PM opening.  The wonderful marina is located on the South side of the historic bridge.

Plugged into shore power, Linda fired up the convection oven and reheated some of her home made pizza and assembled some great nachos….  We are warm, tied up facing the cold North wind so it and the waves go right around us without effect.  Pretty nice I have to say……

The slip is a bit expensive (70 bucks with power) so the meal we ate on board helped cancel out dock fees.   Another meal or two onboard and we will be back to even.  Walking right off the boat into town is certainly a big plus.  Here in St. Augustine where getting off the boat is a big part of the attraction docking seems to be a good choice, given the freindliness and grace of the people… it’s an excellent choice.

8PM   The famous “City of Lights” here is nice, but not as good as I expected…. especially after seeing J’ville at night.  The art and tourist shops are better here, and more of both but  the “dockside” feel of Jacksonville is pretty special.  If your travelling by car… I’d vote for St. Augustine, if by boat it’s a toss up. 

This place has a quaint New Orleans feel to it, small pubs and courtyards… almost hidden restraunts off the main drag… brick streets, but it’s by far cleaner and less risquet than the big easy.  The party atmosphere is here…. but instead of strip shows on Bourbon Street they have museum quality artwork and more eclectic shops than you could ever visit in a day.  We saved the second half of St. George Street for tomorrow.  

Tomorrow we will ride the trolley about town and hear about the city’s history.  All the shop owners and restrauneurs are just genuinely so happy you are here.  It’s a very comfortable and welcome feel.  St. Augustine… so far I am impressed.

SYL   Rusty

Jacksonville Landing

SYL at Public docks in Jacksonville

Jacksonville Landing at Night

Jacksonville Landing

We got up this morning to intermittent clapping on the boardwalk here in Jacksonville. Rusty knew what it was about. Apparently a marathon was started at midnight last night and people started appearing at the finish line around 8:00am. Now it was freezing last night. I just don’t get it, but my hats off to those determined individuals who run. We thought the current would be against us until about 1:00pm but upon rising we found a favorable current, threw off our lines and left. We have had our coffee and now I will go fix the captain breakfast.

I feel better today than I have felt in over a week. You don’t know how bad you feel until you finally feel good. I missed most of Jacksonville but we were anchored in a beautiful spot so not all was lost. I am going to try to figure out how to post a gallery of photo’s today……we will see.

4:44PM We easily managed the 43 miles to Pine Island today. Our anchor is down in a secluded creek behind Pine Island, 10 miles or so from St. Augustine. We had a favorable current for all but an hour or so of the trip. The ICW goes by miles and miles of beautiful homes between the St. Johns and St. Augustine Inlets. Palm Valley has some high priced real-estate along the Eastern shore.

A couple we met (on a DeFever 41) in Jacsonville were anchored here when we arrived. I dropped the dink and said hello. We might go over for a drink before dark.

Linda is cooking us a steak. We took them out several days ago, but had trouble not eating sushi every day… lol. I’m looking forward to St. Augustine. It’s the oldest city in the United States…. not just Florida… but the whole US. There is a historic trolley ride, and the city still has it’s light show going along the waterfont.

Steaks are here…gotta go.

Rusty

Jacksonville Florida
SYL is at Jackson Landing in the middle of town, the big floating dock provided by the city is free. We tied up in front of Sushi KoJa where we had lunch and dinner yesterday. The food and prices are quite good, I expect we will repeat the process before we leave.

Jacksonville is a historic port town built around the St.John’s river. The city founders did a great job of building “on the water” attractions and activities. It truly is a boat friendly place, I imagine the summer is packed with boats and waterside events at the outdoor bandstand here in the middle of Jackson Landing. The Gator Bowl (3 miles down river) also has a park and free docks right next to the stadium. They love their Jacksonville Jaguars.

Across the river on the South shore is a cultural center, science museum and from what we can see from here nice fountains and other attractions. The fellow that plans the lighting here must be a fun guy. They don’t just make it where you can see to get around Jacksonville…. they use every color light you can imagine splashed on the bridges and tall buildings to create a truly picturesque nightscape. I didn’t know Jacksonville was such a “destination” I’m glad we came.

Last night I did find out a trick you should know when docking alongside in the river. Tie your boat up facing up river…… I know it sounds obvious, but the current flows strongly in both directions here. Last night we bucked a bit tied stern to the current. Today I’m going to move 50 yards up the river close to a gazebo that juts out into the water. I imagine the current will be easier tucked in behind the outcropping.

Well, my coffee is on the table. We had some rain last night with the passing front and it’s still cloudy but the winds are down around 10 and the sky is getting lighter. I’m hoping for a nice weather day.

5:30PM      The day did clear nicely.  Linda and I untied and made our way across the river….. we filled up with gas and looked at the science museum.  It was OK but nothing to write home about.   We re-tied SYL back at Jacksonville Landing about 70 yards up river from our previous spot.  After more sushi I hopped the skyway to the convention center for the boat show.  The show was OK, but as I expected it was mostly flats, wakeboard and fishing boats with a few trailerable cruisers in the mix.  I always enjoy boat shows no matter what the size.   I spent about 2 hours then wanedered back to the boat.  I brought us some spicy wings and onion rings in for dinner so Linda didn’t have to cook.

After careful study…… the thing I like best about Jacksonville is the free eventside docking, the second thing would be the varied places to eat right here on the water.   We almost always did take out and ate on our boat.  One of the places told me to call it in and they would deliver to the boat.  That’s pretty cool.   My third favorite thing about Jacksonville is the Maratime Museum.  The waterfront is a very popular jogging location… so people watching us watching them is also part of the fun.   The few that stop and talk are enjoyable.  I like sharing stories with other people and how where they live.  I’ll talk to anybody about anything.. I like to smear happiness and joy on anybody that will stand still long enough. 

A couple that tied up at the dock a bit ago just came by.   They have a mid 1980’s 41′ DeFever powerboat.   I met them when I went over to help them tie up.  That’s the part of cruising we like best…. the people.

We might leave here tomorrow afternoon.  My research tells me St. Augustine has a trolley tour of town and their “city of lights” ends Tuesday night.  It looks like something we may want to see.  After a run to the grocery, we will probably wait for a favorable tide (around noon) then move down the river 15 miles to the mouth, then Sunday make the run either inside on the ICW or outside depending on weather to St. Augustine.

Sea Yawl Later !!   Rusty

The morning is clear and cool, but not too cool.  We didn’t run the heater last night so the cabin was 63 this morning.  Nice under the blanket but a little chilly getting up at first. 

The tidal range here is amazing.  This morning it’s high tide and I can see the stripes on the pavement in the parking lot, at low tide you can’t see the cars in the second row at all.  The sea level varies 7 to 9 feet twice a day. 

Brunswick has a wide range of sea birds flopping around in the harbor, there are the normal cormorant diving birds and sea gulls, a few pelicans, but oddly crows caw from the trees every morning and there is a neat looking duck that’s always swimming about.  The ducks are black with a large white crest that starts on top and goes behind his head.  They are about the size of teal but they also dive like a cormorant.  Just before they dive they fold all that head gear back to make them streamline.

The marina is tucked in a couple miles from the coast up the river.  The geography gives us a super calm anchorage.  Even when the wind is singing in the standing rigging there is little more than a ripple on the water.  Consequently people from all over the US (especially the Eastern seaboard) leave there boats here during the hot summer.  Sailing season starts about now and ends for most folks with the start of hurricane season.

There goes one of the white headed ducks…. they are wary little birds.  If your outside they don’t come that close to the boat.   With the pronounced white feathers on their head they are very distinctive.

John and Carolyn just walked by going for coffee with some dock mates.  They said they are having their bottom cleaned Thursday so they won’t leave when we do if we go to the Jacksonville boat show, but would catch up with us soon.   That means we will probably leave early in the morning for J’ville.  Our first stop is a remote anchorage 10 miles North of Fernandina in Delaroche Creek.  We stopped there on our way here and marked it in our book as a nice stop.  It’s wide open so there shouldn’t be any bugs but lots of wildlife.   We saw dolphins and lots of waterbirds.  You can tuck in behind a sandbar so the current isn’t bad and your totally away from tugboat traffic.  You have to putt around and check your swing radius depth clocsely because of the tidal range is so wide.  If your in 6 feet of water when you anchor at high tide, you’ll be 1 foot up on land at low tide.   Once we get well into Florida we won’t have to worry about radical tide swings.

This is day one…. day one of no more stinky holding tanks!  We officially christened the composting head today.  I know.. I know…. talking about such facilities may be taboo.  But when it’s such a nice change I felt it very note worthy…. and then again, think about who your reading here…  I find very few subjects far enough off limits that I can’t express them fun enough to not cause flinching.

Off to wash the bow of the boat…. oops back inside.  There are biting gnats that swarm thru in the morning and evening.  I’ll wait to wash until they go hide.

7PM… well there was a short “no gnat” window today.  With no breeze they were quite the pest.  We did get our laundry done and I washed part of the bow but the bugs were terrible so I didn’t finish.  We had a great evening meal, filled the water tank and are set to go in the morning.  There are a few things to do first light.. but not many. 

I suspect we will get away around 8AM Florida, 7AM Texas time.  We have many great anchoring options on the way so we will go as far as we want to and stop.  The two legs to Jacksonville are short 40 mile runs.  If the river to J’ville is flowing in off the ICW… we will shoot home quickly the last 18 miles Thursday.  If not we will have current to face.  According to my gps we will have an early shot at good current, but as the day goes on… not so much.

Tomorrow is our first opportunity to sail!   The wind (if any) should be from a favorable direction.  I’m off to check weather again.  Earlier today we had 2 1/2 days before the possibility of rain.    The ICW is never much of a challenge weather wise.

Sea Yawl Later !!

Today was a fun day… The morning was warm so a lingering fog wandered through the marina over the cool water until 10AM.  Ducks swimming about made the only ripples on the water…. no wind.  Before noon the sun broke through and produced a superbly sunny day.  Our time was spent warm and bright with good company (our dock 5 buddies).

Linda and her new running buddy got manicures and pedicures today….. while John and I eased SYL over to the fuel dock and filled her up.  While we were there we pumped out the tank.  One of the chores I did today was to clean up the dock area…. I had thrown stuff off the boat to wash or throw away… the new head was in a box there too so I had quite a pile to go thru.  Today I cleaned up the “off boat” work area then broke up the huge bail of peat moss into six 2 gallon containers (6 months worth)….. the rest of the peat moss I gave to the grounds keeper.  We kept over half the 8.00 bale but really didn’t want to store the last $3.00 worth.

We have sort of decided to go to the Jacksonville boat show this weekend.  I thought about sailing there, but Linda, Carolyn and John want to drive over and back so we can all hang out here longer.    I’m 50/50 on it… so whatever everybody else wants to do is fine with me.  Friday night Ron White is playing live there at the dock, but tickets are $160 to $240 each…. I really thought about going anyway… but I am sure he’s more vulgar live than we can stand.   We have to “put up” with a bit of it to enjoy his humor on TV… but I bet his live performances get way on down there….. so as much as I enjoy him I think we’ll pass.

I’ll probably put the head in tomorrow.  The tank is empty and I’m ready to leave it that way!   It was fun to drive the boat again…. man those motors are running sweet and the new throttles are a joy to use.  No ethanol in Brunswick Marina gas…. !  I bought a lot of it even filling our jerry cans in case the next place has ethanol in it’s gas… maybe I can keep the carbs clean all the way home.

I’ll have the boat ready to head out tomorrow if Linda is.   It’s an easy two day run (80 miles or so) to J’ville.  I figure they will choose to drive to Jacksonville and hang out here longer.  Luckily all I have to do is Peddle…. she generally does most of the steering and I like it that way.

Sea Yawl Later !!  Rusty