A Stormy Day

Another early start on Saturday had us through our first bridge at 7:30. We were joined by 'Charisma', another ketch that had been anchored beside us the previous night. We chatted a bit with them on the radio along the way and confirmed our suspicions that we had first run into them in Georgetown, Bahamas, and that the captain, Bill, was one of the morning cruisers net radio hosts. Bill said they were also heading for St. Augustine that night, hoping to get there before the thunderstorms rolled in that afternoon. We had checked the weather only briefly, and saw the forecast of 30% chance of rain, which is pretty standard for Florida.

As we travelled along, we gathered more sailboats, all traveling at about the same speed as we were. In all, 5 boats made a little northbound parade, sometimes spreading out a bit, depending on engine RPM, and who had a sail up. Though we seemed to regroup again at bridges, as the bridge masters would make the lead boats slow down and wait for the stragglers so they would only have to stop land traffic for one bridge opening.

Shortly after noon we could see the dark clouds forming in the western sky. As they approached around 1, the group of boats had again split up on account of no bridges for a long stretch of the ICW. As we neared the Crescent Beach bridge, we were the stragglers who were left behind as the other boats sped up to make the opening together. This turned out to be a stroke of good luck on our part. Just less than a mile from the bridge, Greg decided that we had better anchor to wait out the nasty-looking front that was quickly approaching. He radioed the bridge master and asked if there was any deep water south of the bridge that would be appropriate for us to drop the hook in while we waited out the weather. He kindly told us a spot between two channel markers that would keep us out of the way of other traffic. We sped up in an attempt to get to the intended spot before the wind really picked up, Greg went to the bow to ready the anchor. The wind speed steadily climbed, and Greg directed me from the bow, though we were having trouble making headway. Just as the rain started, the bridge master radioed that the wind at the bridge was gusting 30 knots, warning us that we would very soon be in those conditions too. Before I had a chance to yell to Greg, the wall of wind hit us, and even without any sails up, we were pushed sideways, as if a gust of wind had hit us with sails up. We were no longer in a position to be able to anchor. Our only reasonable choice was to turn around and run with the weather. This is where we were lucky we had not made it through the bridge with the others. They did not have the luxury of turning around, they would have quickly come back upon the bridge spanning the waterway. I began the turn back toward the canal, but the wind was preventing me from having the power to turn the boat. The deep water in this part of the ICW is only about 125 feet wide, or about 3 boat-lengths. Not a lot of room under the best conditions, and without the power to keep the boat turning, I was quickly running out of time before we met with the docks on the east side. From the bow, Greg yelled to me 'you need more power!'. This was absolutely counter-intuitive to what I thought would solve the problem. But, it worked, and our good ol' Perkins did the job and delivered the thrust we needed to get turned around!

For the next half hour, we endured pouring rain, luckily from the protection of our full enclosure. At times visibility was severely compromised, and the wind howled around us. I watched the plotter and depth sounder, while Greg stuck his head out the side window and steered point to point between the channel markers. We made use of some wider spots in the channel to turn around and orbit once the wind had calmed.
By 2 o'clock, all that remained of the storm was a light rain. We headed north, and requested a bridge opening, which we got after a short delay, as the sustained wind speed must have dropped for a specified time before they can open the bridge. We then passed through the Crescent Beach bridge, thanking the bridge master for his help.

After arriving in St. Augustine a couple of hours later, we decided it was safe to head for shore, hoping to make it before the rain started again. We did make it, and managed to check in at the office (hearing that their anemometer had seen wind gusts of up to 60 knots when the front passed through!) and get to dinner with my parents who had driven up the coast to meet us again.
We watched the pouring rain all through dinner, and when a break in the downpour appeared, headed to the bookstore next door. There we browsed the selection, taking in the vast choice available (still sometimes a shock from the meager availability in the Bahamas). Greg picked up a copy of SAIL magazine, and having submitted an article to them about lionfish in the winter, was pleasantly surprised to see it published in the current issue!
Another pause in the rain allowed us to dash back to the car, and we were dropped off at the marina where we grabbed showers and then headed back to the boat.