Saint Augustine was a hard-earned destination. The passage itself was fine – no worse than anything else we’ve experienced. But St. Mary’s Inlet was legitimately terrifying. While the forecasts called for 10-15kts, we saw 20-25 with gusts up to 30 and we had wind against current. There were nasty, short period waves rolling through the inlet – most were around 7′, but we had a few 10’ers that broke over the boat. I hadn’t closed the companionway and we took a wave down into the cabin, and I knew our leaking forward hatches were taking on water (at least this time we were smart enough to move the cushions to the aft cabin). We were both drenched, and we had at least a 6 hour sail ahead of us. Plus there was a submarine heading in, and they were scrambling GPS signal – our chartplotter showed us well north of the channel while we were being pushed down towards the south jetty. I’d always heard St. Augustine could be nasty, and while I knew the wind and current should be going in the same direction, I couldn’t relax, especially as I watched squalls forming inland. St. Augustine inlet was fine, if a bit challenging to spot the buoys. We’d called Tow Boat US before we left to confirm that nothing had changed in the inlet as a result of the hurricanes, and using the cross as a guide, I was able to find the channel marks without too much trouble.
Saint Augustine was a lot busier than in the spring. We had a hard time finding a place to anchor – the Vilano Beach anchorage was full, the one by the fort was full, and the anchorage on the northeast side of the Bridge of Lions was tight, but we squeezed in. However, we realized that when the tide turned, we’d be pretty close to one of the channel daymarks, so we stayed up late to watch how the boat behaved. We, along with all the boats around us, were sailing on our anchors in completely unpredictable ways, thanks to the insane current. At least we had a beautiful view of St. Augustine’s Nights of Lights display. Sure, it was before Thanksgiving, but it was fun to see the town all decked out regardless.
We tried to get a mooring through the city marina, but they were full (although later they called to say they had space), so we called and went into the marina a day early. Of course, when it was time for us to haul anchor, it was pouring rain. At least our foulies got a good rinse! Given the nasty current and tight anchorage, I hauled anchor this time… it wasn’t until after that we found out the Bridge of Lions doesn’t open at noon on weekdays. Oops!
We took Thanksgiving week off, and of course it was overcast/rainy the whole time. But we made the best of it and did a bunch of the touristy things we rarely get to do together. We spent lots of time just wandering around town and went all the way across town to Chop Shop to pick up ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner. Saint Augustine has a daily cruisers net, and they schedule weekly get-togethers, so we stepped out of our comfort zone and headed to Dog Rose Brewing Co. for the meet-up. Krystal, Robert and their adorable daughter, and their boat neighbor Sarah, invited us to Thanksgiving the following day. We fried up the chicken we’d been planning on making, brought our bottle of wine and the pumpkin pie I picked up, and enjoyed a nice dinner in the company of new friends.
It was a foggy, rainy Friday, but we didn’t let that stop us. We went to Osprey Tacos (the pork fried rice tacos are awesome!) and then headed next door and shared flights at Old Coast Ales. That night, we did a ghost pub crawl in the off-and-on rain. We didn’t see any ghosts, but we did see pubs and our guide, Nick, was fun.
Saturday we took a factory tour at Whetstone Chocolate, a local chocolatier that started as an ice cream shop. They eventually got into chocolate making and went on to produce some of the specialty chocolates for the mass market producers, before deciding to get back to their roots. The tour was fun, and we got to sample some chocolate along the way. My favorite that we tried on the tour was the Menendez blend dark chocolate (72% cocoa), but their best chocolate is their Sebastian blend(80% cocoa). The bag we bought didn’t survive the week.
We had lunch at Cafe Alcazar (we managed to snag a table thanks to a last-minute cancellation) and explored the Lightner Museum, housed in the former Hotel Alcazar constructed by Henry Flagler. The Lightner is a collection of collections, and there were some really impressive pieces. Additionally, parts of the old hotel have been preserved, like the sauna, and Cafe Alcazar is situated in the old swimming pool.
After almost two weeks of of cloudy, rainy weather, the sun finally came out on Sunday. We toured Flagler College housed in the former Hotel Ponce De León, also built by Henry Flagler and directly across the street from the Hotel Alcazar. A stay there cost $4,000 (something like $100,000 in today’s money), which covered a four-month stay, meals, activities and childcare. The architecture is impressive, and the dining room (now the dining hall) is adorned with 76 amazing Louis Comfort Tiffany stained-glass windows.
We had brunch at Uptown Swinery and decided to head out to the beach at Anastasia Island. It was gorgeous, and I was happy that it was warm enough to walk the beach barefoot. The shuttle to the beach was operated by the local hop-on-hop-off trolley tour, so we figured we may as well ride around town and at least get a sense of what else we hadn’t yet discovered.
Of course the work week was beautiful, and we were finally able to start drying out the boat. I was thankful for the marina’s free laundry – I think I did something like 7 loads over the course of two weeks. We hadn’t done laundry in Charleston (the marina there charges $4/wash, $3/dry… no thanks!) so the clothes were piling up, we had all the wet bedding, blankets, pillows, throw rugs, and towels… having to pay for all that laundry wouldn’t have been cheap!
On Wednesday night, we strolled the Nights of Lights (we were surprised at the lack of crowd!) and Lori and Paul joined us for a night out at Sarbez! – an arcade that serves gourmet grilled cheese and craft beer. We walked past it a bunch of times last year when we were staying on that side of the Bridge of Lions, and I’m glad we finally got to go – even better that we got to go with friends! The grilled cheeses lived up to the hype, and their tap list was impressive. I was reminded just how bad I am at arcade games, but we had fun and lots of laughs. I’m sad that we won’t catch up with Lori and Paul again at least for a few months, but I’m glad that we got to catch up as we hopped down the coast.
Llama is a tiny, 10-table Peruvian restaurant we stumbled on last year (again on that side of the bridge), and we were excited to go back. We made reservations early, and 12/1 was the soonest we could get in. We had ceviche to start (although the anticuchos was hard to pass up), I had a seafood risotto and Chris had surf and turf, and for dessert we had algarrobina custard which was every bit as pretty as it was tasty.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Saint Augustine, and if I’m being honest, I wasn’t looking forward to the passage to Port Canaveral. I still hadn’t let go of the trip down, but it was time to get back on the horse and hope this time for a gentler ride.
