Thursday, November 18, 2010

Sunday, November 7, 2010 – Ft. Matanzas inlet (ICW mile 792.4)

It was a cold and windy night and we awoke to a temperature that was barely 50°F. Daylight Savings Time ended overnight, so we were able to get an earlier start and left the mooring at 7 am. All day long we had a strong north wind and, at times, were able to move down the waterway at 10.5 knots with the motor and the sail.

It was early when we came through St Augustine at 2:30 pm. We just missed the half-hour opening of the Bridge of Lions so we dropped the sail and waited for the bridge to open again at 3 pm. Since we still had over 2 hours of daylight remaining, we decided to move on towards the Ft. Matanzas anchorage. By then, the tide had turned and we were fighting a strong current that slowed us down considerably.

Sunset was at 5:35 pm and we arrived at the anchorage around 5:40 pm. We had no problem setting the anchors – we put a bow and stern anchor out since it was so windy. A small sailboat, Mystical, that we had passed along the way came into the anchorage about 30 minutes later when it was quite dark. We hailed them on the radio to offer information on the anchorage in case they had not been there before. They had not, so we directed them closer to the fort where we knew the holding was good.

It was another cold night.

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