St Augustine - at a dock

 

A view of the sunrise from the dinghy dock at Bethune Park

We had a nice sunrise this morning when I took Hoolie into shore. The forecast was for rain all day, starting in the early hours but we lucked out, no rain in the morning. We like the anchorage here at Bethune Park but the downside is the thick mud on the bottom. Weighing anchor involves thoroughly hosing down the chain before it comes aboard. The mud is so think that in places you can’t see the links. A high pressure wash down pump works well - which I have installed at the bow. 

The swimmer - not all that visible

As we approached Ft Matanzas, I found myself behind a tug pushing two barges end to end. His task was to make all the sharp turns through the passage. It was clear he was very experienced, he made it look easy. The Bob423 track is fine but I’ll be moving it a little more to shore for a couple more feet of depth. 

The St Augustine marina is missing a section of the north docks

We had one surprise when Ann spotted a float in the channel that appeared to be moving. Pulling up along side, we discovered it was a long distance swimmer! He (she?) was trailing a float but it wasn’t all that visible. Knowing that a tug pushing two barges was right behind me, Ann radioed an alert back to the captain but he had already spotted the swimmer. Since the tug took up a significant part of the channel and also had limited maneuverability, it didn’t appear to be too smart a thing to be doing in the ICW channel. 

We arrived in St Augustine by 3:00 pm in good spirits and tried out our new air conditioner - boy is it powerful! The marina is not fully functional. They lost part of the north dock as evidenced by a gap, a missing section of docks. The whole north dock is non-functional.

We’ll leave for the free Sister’s Creek docks Wednesday morning and should get there at least by 1:00 pm so we are early enough to get a dock before the crowds come in later.