The Broach

Next leg of the journey completed and we are sitting in a mooring in St Augustine at the northern part of Florida just across the state border from Georgia.  

We had an interesting sail with Gayle and Cameron from Charleston.  Great wind but wrong direction.  It was blowing 20 to 25kts from the North and we were headed south.  Ended up leaving early in the morning and putting in a couple of big tacks out to sea to eventually make our course but taking a bit longer.  We sailed overnight which has become a bit easier and into the next day.  In the morning it was clear that we were not going to make St Augustine so we made a decision to pull into a place called Fernandina Beach for the second night.  We anchored up and Gayle and Cameron departed as they had Thanksgiving commitments.  The next day we sailed the remainder of the way to St Augustine, about 50 NM.  This proved to be probably the hardest leg yet.

Gayle and Cameron sailing

We knew it was still blowing but the wind was still from the North so were not too worried.  Again the route was basically due south and so had to tack.  We got out and set a genoa only as the wind was howling.  The sea was pretty unsettled - an underlying swell with short steep wind waves - which together with only the single headsail made the motion of the boat pretty uncomfortable.  Lots of rolling.  At St Augustine there is a channel in from offshore and it has sand bars on either side.  The buoyage is not marked on the chart because the sands shift all the time and so they have to reposition the buoys.  The more I looked at this the more nervous I became especially with the confused sea that was running at the time.  It was breaking over the sand bars and making it very difficult to see the buoys.  In addition the depth and width of the channel was difficult to ascertain.  As we drew nearer to the entrance it looked more and more daunting due to the sea that was running in and breaking over the sand bars.

We lined up the first mark which we spotted and started in.  Nic was in the cockpit with the binoculas trying to spot the channel marks.  The boat was pitching and rolling and we were trying to keep an eye on the seas breaking around us and the instruments.  We looked OK when Nic spotted the next mark and we were out of the channel.  As we corrected the depth sounder recorded zero and so we did an immediate 180 degree turn and motored back out to sea to reassess.

We held station just off the channel for about half and hour while we talked to the marina and a guy from a company called Sea Tow to get some local knowledge on running the bar.  There was no real choice for us as the next nearest larger port was either 30 miles into a 25kt wind or 100 miles south and we did not want to just heave to in this weather for the night as the next day was forecast to be similar.

We made the second approach to the start of the bar and lined up the first mark and started motoring in.  Nic had a good visual on the buoys but to make it even more interesting the sun was at a point where its reflection was making sighting them difficult.  We kept motoring in and seemed to be going well until a breaking wave caught us.  I believe that the way to run these bars is to have sufficient speed to keep in front of the waves but in our boat we do not have the turn of speed and besides given the uncertainty with the depth I wanted to take it easy.  As a result we are exposed at certain times.  A wave was breaking and it caught our starboard stern.  I have no idea how big it was but it picked up the stern of the boat and started driving us down the wave face making the boat tip over to port to an alarming degree.  At the same time the bow of the boat skewed up to starboard as it attempted to escape the face of the wave.  I believe the sailing term is a broach.  Nic screamed from the cockpit and I saw her struggling to hang on to the dodger with her feet braced on the cockpit table.  I was hanging onto the wheel trying to too get the bow pointing back to port.  Within an instant the boat righted itself and we got back on course - everyone was shaken but OK.  Nic had a bad scrape on her shin and Calley had a bruise on her arm from when she fell out of bed but luckily that was the extent of the damage.

We continued in through the bar,  got hit one more time by another wave but not as bad and then suddenly we were through and were in flat water.  That is one of the most amazing things about boating.  You can be in the middle of a maelstrom one moment and then the next you are sitting at anchor or in the bar leaning back on your chair sipping a beer.

We were now in this small bay and proceeded down a marked channel towards the towm of St Augustine.  There is a bascule bridge which spans the entrance to the inner harbour so we had to wait for the bridge to open before transiting and picking up our mooring.  Once we got secured we sat down, opened a beer and let out a big sigh of relief.  It was a very dicey moment for us and the closest we have come to real damage.  Nic was a bit shaken up but the kids were OK.  The boat had handled it amazingly well.  Every day we sail in the boat it reassures us more.  Even in the extreme motion we had experienced nothing major had come loose or let go down below.

St Augustine is the oldest European settlement in the US.  It was settled in the 1500’s by the Spanish but was later taken over by the British.  Its a really nice town.  We went ashore the next day after more schoolwork in the morning and had a look around.  It was as if we had changed countries.  The weather was beautiful and the town has Spanish influenced architecture.  There are lots of old houses and narrow cobbled streets with small shops lining each side.  At one end of the historic area is an old Fort in excellent condition called Castillo de San Marco which guards the entrance to the inner harbour.   There are other ruins around the town which add to its character.  Some of the streets have small squares with fountains in them.

Relieved Crew onshore

Castillo San Marco

Calley enjoying the sunshine

We wandered around for a few hours in the afternoon just enjoying the ambiance of the town and the beautiful sunshine.  We walked out to the fort and sat on the walls overlooking the channel into the bay and thought about yesterday.  What a difference.  The kids ran around on the grass glad to be off the boat for a while.  It was a really relaxing afternoon.

Our plan for the next few days is to sit here and catch up with Gayle.  We also want to do some provisioning of the boat and buy some spares etc.  We have a new microwave coming also that needs to be installed.  Of course we have the schoolwork to do.  Nic and I are off to a concert tonight with Gayle to see Eddie Vedder who is playing in nearby Jacksonville.  Gayle has organised sitters for the kids.

Modern message in a bottle