We spent last night tied to a dock at Sister’s Creek on the intercoastal waterway to prepare to leave super early the next morning so we could get out of the inlet right at sunrise! Last night was surprisingly eventful for a secluded marina with no other boats… We were anchored in like 8 feet of water, but apparently we arrived at the peak of high tide.  As the tide dropped we slowly realized that there was actually a significant tide swing here as opposed to the rest of florida that barely has anything. As we looked out the porthole in dawning horror we noticed that the water on the other side of the dock was now just a muddy marsh and that our keel was definitely just sitting in mud.

It could have been much worse obviously!  On the plus side, the boat doesn’t move at all when it’s deep in mud and tied to the dock.  We also got to calibrate our depth meter to read zero when it’s actually zero.  Not the way it’s recommended to set it up, but hey!

We set our alarm for 6:00 in the morning (which is a few hours earlier than we usually get up now!) and tried to get a good nights sleep while worrying if there would still be water under the boat.  Eventually we got to sleep and woke up to the jarring screech of the alarm on my cell phone.  We quickly got dressed, I made a quick pot of to-go coffee, and we set off towards the inlet!

I got some cool night shots of some of the Navy ships at BAE and also at the Mayport Navy Base.

For some reason our deck light turned itself on, but it made for some really fantastic photos!

Eventually we reached the inlet and, as luck (and research!) would have it, it was completely flat and easy to just motor on out!

We got to watch the sunrise over the ocean and see some birds working a school of bait fish in the distance! If we had our fishing poles out we probably would have caught something!

The sail itself was actually really mellow.  There was barely enough wind to fill the sails, so we ended up just motoring the entire way.  The only downside to that was that if there’s enough wind, it will just push the boat over a bit and keep it steady, which is a lot more comfortable of a ride.  As it was, the ocean was pretty flat but the boat still rolled a bit the entire way!

The cats didn’t really enjoy the trip, but they didn’t really complain much either.  At one point Dart came up to the cockpit and sat with me!

The diciest part of the entire day was actually just getting into the inlet at St. Augustine.  It’s notorious for having odd shallow spots and marker buoys that move around to where they shouldn’t.  We made it through without hitting anything or running aground.  The mooring ball that we reserved was located on the South end on the other side of the bridge of lions.  So we got to stop traffic again and go through yet another bridge!

We got our mooring ball and took the dinghy to the office to pay for it and get some supplies.  I couldn’t *not* get a few pictures of Peregrine, especially with her fancy new name on the back!

After that we made dinner and relaxed in the sunshine on the back of the boat.  While Jason was on the phone, I wrapped the last of the Christmas presents!

Overall it was both an exciting and boring day.  I suppose I would rather be bored offshore than terrified!