St Augustine - the repair barge arrives and excitement at the docks

Don’t’ let the Dockmaster assign you a dock with current and wind pushing you away from 
your slip. He put both my boat and the boat coming in a risk when there were plenty of docks 
available across the fairway against the tide with the wind helping instead of hurting. 

 St Augustine can be a challenging place to dock. The current rips through there and it’s not parallel to the docks. It’s at an angle for both ebb and flood tides. The usual practice is to use B dock and assign your slip on the side where you can come in against the current. However, this week they were only using one side of B dock and when we arrived, there was an ebb tide and we were assigned a dock where the current was behind us coming in. Now that’s doable provided it’s on the side of the dock where the current pushes you into the dock as opposed to away from the dock. 

Take a look at the photo. Although the current was behind us coming in, at least we took the side of the dock where the current pushed us into the dock, not away from it. Ann was at the helm and she took it in without incident using the Captain Ron maneuver. 

A boat coming in later was assigned a dock where the current pushed it away from where you wanted to land (see photo). He was single handing the boat and there was only one dock hand to help out. It was a recipe for disaster. I put a fender out, mostly for good luck since it wouldn’t do a lot of good and offered to help in the interest of boat preservation (my boat!). As the boat went sideways in the fairway with current pushing him towards us, I feared the worst. 

Sure enough, there was no way he was going to make that turn given the wind was broadside from out of the east. After four tries, he gave up and went into a slip that should have been assigned by the Dockmaster at first go. In the slip he finally landed in, he went in against the current and with the current pushing him into the dock, easy peasy. The Dockmaster should have been ashamed of himself for putting not only the boat coming in at risk but also for putting other boats in the marina at risk (mine!!). There were plenty of empty slips on C dock but I guess it involved a longer walk by the dockhands!? I don’t know. I’ll see what he says tomorrow when I talk to him. 

The captain of the tug moving the barge certainly knew his business. He made it look easy (it’s not!)

Meanwhile, the work barge came in and was maneuvered masterly by two small tugs. It’s huge but it was piloted by an expert captain. It’s replacing the damaged part of the breakwater docks north of B dock - which is why there’s no boats on the north side of B dock.

We ate lunch at Harry’s which was good but we had a long wait even at 2:00 pm for lunch. We would have  had to wait even longer for an outside table downstairs. The food was good but the wait does not sit with us well, we hate to wait for a table. As we left, there were empty table at 3:00 pm for lunch which is served until 4:00 pm when the dinner menu takes over (at a higher price for many of the same items). 

One more day and we’re off.