A Glimpse of Northbound Travel

St. Augustine seems to be a complex spot with a fort that first flew a Spanish flag, pirates sailing about and singing...with tourists aboard of course...cruisers flying flags from Sweden, Italy, England and Canada among other places. Henry Flagler's influence is evident with two 19^th century hotels that he built to attract wealthy tourists which in turn got him involved with building a railway south along Florida's east coast to get them there and later down to Palm Beach and Miami. We toured one of those hotels, now turned into the Lightner Museum, originally one of those hotels. We also enjoyed a delicious lunch in the pool of the hotel (now empty, of course) that had been turned into an attractive cafe. This oldest city in the country provides examples of architecture and life here over the last 450 years. We have stopped here to visit each time we travel by.

We finally left St. Augustine after waiting out the weather mentioned in the last blog entry, at a time that would help us avoid low tide in tricky areas. Timing was important for a stress free trip. Since the tide changes from low to high in six hours and then back to low again about six hours later, we couldn't usually avoid traveling at low tide somewhere along the route. The trick was to work the timing to arrive at the critical spots when the tide was high enough.

We ended up staying on the ICW all the way through Georgia, a first for us, since we'd always taken the ocean option in past rips. Georgia was a pretty stretch of ICW but kept us out in coastal marsh terrain most of the time. Cumberland Island was a beautiful stop. Much of the Island is protected by the National Seashore. Just imagine nearly 20 miles of pristine beaches, walking trails through live oak and wild horses to greet you along the way.

After leaving Georgia behind, we anchored in Beaufort, SC. This is a pretty, classic southern town with lots to see and experience. We were on a mission, though, to get up to Virginia soon, so we had only an afternoon here on this trip. We left in the morning as the sun came up. A swing bridge had to be opened for us to continue north, and it doesn't open between 7AM and 9AM to accommodate heavy auto flow at that time. So we had to get through before 7:00 to stay on the tide schedule. We deal with lots of bridges during our travels on the ICW, so it's important to know their schedules for opening.

Two days later we were crossing Charleston Harbor and getting a view of Fort Sumter as we made our way out to sea for an overnight sail to Cape Fear and our next stop in Wrightsville Beach. This two day trip would have taken four days on the ICW, and the weather looked good for the ocean passage. Wrightsville Beach in May we found to be a spot young people like after school ends for the summer. We've been there twice in May and found it full of students enjoying the sun and beach. The jasmine is in bloom in May as well. The whole town seemed to smell of it – how fragrant!

We spent our first night at a marina as a treat to ourselves after getting little sleep during the ocean overnight. We enjoyed a stress free sleep as well as the marina's amenities of laundry and a courtesy car. We then moved nearby for a second night at anchor before hitting the ICW for another day of sightseeing along coastal North Carolina. This stretch required us to time our travel around three bridges that opened on restricted schedules, and also tried avoiding low tide as best we could.

This is typical travel for us on the ICW. Two more days and we'll reach Beaufort, NC - another picturesque coastal town (although quite different from the SC town of the same name) we'll enjoy for a day before heading north once again. Just to put this into a perspective for non-boating travelers, the trip from Wrightsville Beach to Beaufort would likely take no more than three hours by car rather than the two days for us by boat. Like the tortoise, we may be a bit slow, but we bring our home along with us, and we also get to see parts of this beautiful country invisible to most who can only travel quickly by auto.

Carpe Diem
Captain Bob

PS: Find our latest anchorage at: Shiptrak.org  Type in callsign - N1SFR