We depart St Augustine at 0830 with sunny skies and the temp already in the upper 70‘s. Although it’s the bottom of the tide, the current is still running hard against us. The wind is up too, blowing 15+ from the southwest which means there will be no sailing today. Let’s see, wind on the nose + current against us = going nowhere slowly. We proceed on hoping to get below the rain line.
Although our speed is less than 5 mph, we are enjoying the warmer temps and breezes. We come upon two sailboats hard aground and they tell us where to find the deeper water and we pass them safely. Later one of them gets himself free and passes us a few miles further south. We catch up to that same boat at Matanzas Inlet where there is another sailboat aground. We all do our little dance right, left, and up the middle and cannot find enough water to proceed. In desperation, Villianie tries to the right of the red buoy, in other words outside the channel. By this time we have been joined by two trawlers and another sailboat. Villianie finds enough water to get through and we all fall in behind him.
By the time we are through passing Matanzas Inlet, the wind is blowing 25+ and our speed drops some more. Our destination today was Daytona Beach, a total of 53 miles. At 1430 the GPS was telling us we would not reach Daytona until 2000. Since night time travel is not in my plans, we try to find an anchorage or marina that we can stop at before dark. Choices are slim and none. Slim being a marina a couple of miles away and none being no marinas or anchorages after that one marina until the Daytona marina. We opt for Palm Coast Marina and stop for the day.
Donna does some laundry, we do dinner and then chill. The weather forecast for tomorrow is more wind and rain and temps back in the 50‘s. Will the darn jet stream ever move northward again.
Location: Palm Coast Marina, MM 803
Started: 0830 Stopped: 1415
Distance Traveled: 25.4 mi, Avg spd: 4.6 Max spd: 6.2
