Monday April 16, 2018 - Palm Coast to Pine Island

I'm sure glad this day is "over".  I fought the current and the wind ALL day long.  I think there might have been 3 or 4 miles south of St. Augustine where the current was pushing me a little - the rest of the time, I was doing between 2.5 and 4.5 knots.  So, where is Pine Island?  It's a little island with several anchorages.  It's about 12 miles north of St. Augustine and about 20 miles south of Jacksonville.  It pretty much out in the middle of know where.  The charts show several good anchorages but when I got here, what was showing on the charts as 11 and 12 feet of water was between 5 and 7'.  And that was near the southern mouth of the horseshoe.  The northern entrance is nearly impossible to navigate into and out of.  The WNW wind was pushing me into the shallow water so I quickly spun around and stayed near the entrance (where there are lots of white caps).

Around 2pm, I had thought about anchoring about 5 miles south of here.  I was getting tired of motoring into a 3 knot current.  There is a shoal that extends south near the center of the ICW for about 1/2 mile (so the charts say).  Active Captain shows the area as a good anchorage.  My plan was to wait out the tide and move on once it went slack.  As I approached the area on the west side of the ICW, I began thinking the anchorage didn't look that great.  So I veered east to get back on the east side of the main channel.  Just after I changed course, the depth went from 11 to 7 to 5 to 4 to BUMP.  The shoal that the charts show extending south a half mile now extends south 3/4 mile.  Of course, as luck would have it, the tide was falling.  I needed to act quickly.  Also, I was pointing east and the 20 knot wind was pushing me east.  I wasn't sure how much more shallow the depth would get before it began getting deeper again.  It felt like plowing forward was not an option.  I tried spinning right - in the direction of the current and to what I assumed was deeper water.  The boat would not spin.  I tried spinning left and made a little headway.  I had the throttle wide open and was barely turning.  The wind was hitting the bow and keeping me from turning.  I had the wheel against the left stop.  My progress had stopped.  I decided to try decreasing my turn - if the prop wash hits a rudder that is perpendicular to the centerline of the boat, I figured it would not generate much forward thrust.  As I turned the wheel from center to left, I began making headway.  Then I began to turn - I was OFF.  All this was in less than 2 minutes.  I motored back south for a quarter mile and then slowly cut across to the east side of the ICW.  This time, I never saw less than 9 feet. 

The high today was about 65.  With the 20 to 30 knot winds, that made the wind chill around 50.  Needless to say, I had on my light weight foul weather gear all day.  The low tonight is supposed to get down to 48.

That sleeping bag is sure going to feel good tonight!