Tuesday April 17, 2018 - Pine Island to Fernandina Beach

Shortly after I was anchored, I got a text from Bruce.  I called him and described my day.  He thought a good description would be the "Day from Hell".  That may be a bit of an overstatement but it's not that far off. 

I had a good start - leaving Pine Island at around 8am.  I wanted to time my pass through the San Pablo Bridge (17 miles north) so the current would be slack (none).  That worked out pretty well - I was a little early but there was barely any current.  After I went through the bridge, I anchored on the east side of the ICW.  I knew I had a loose zinc on the prop shaft and I wanted to remove it.  This had been on my mind a lot because I was concerned it might wear on either the shaft or the strut (or both).  Where I anchored was just south of the St. Johns river/inlet so I figured the water would be fairly clear - WRONG.  The outside temperature was pretty cool but the water was fairly warm.  I had some trouble getting the zinc off but finally got it.  BTW, I had installed a new zinc just before leaving the Bahamas - I should have removed the old one then.  After taking a warm shower, I was on my way again. 

Crossing the St. John's river was a bit of a challenge with the 3 knot current but soon I was on the north side and headed north for Fernandina.  My plan was to anchor in a creek just south of the town.  About 7 miles north is the Nassau Sound/inlet.  It is where the Nassau and Amelia Rivers meet and flow into the ocean.   I was crossing the point where they meet and was aware of the shoal.  I stayed what I thought was a good distance below it.  But as I crossed over what was supposed to be 12' of water, the depth went from 15' to less than 4' in just a few seconds.  This is where my bad day started.  Of course, I was doing 5 knots and when I hit, the bow went down 2 or 3 feet.  Of course, it was sand so it wasn't sudden or damaging (I hope) and much to my surprise, the bow came back up and the boat resumed it's speed.  It had to have been a very narrow sand bar that I just plowed through. 

About 5 minutes later, I appoached a J120 that was hard aground in the center of the ICW.  He radioed me and warned me to keep to the far west side of the channel.  I thanked him and proceeded.  About a half mile north, I was cruising along again - in 10' of water and suddenly, another hard bump - that I again plowed through.  I had read about this area and thought  I was heeding the advice other cruisers have given about the area.  It was near low tide and the tide was still falling so I was a nervous wreck after this second bump.  I proceeded very cautiously for the next 10 miles.  There were several areas where the depth was right around 4' and I dropped my speed down to a crawl.  I watched the depth gauge like a hawk.  As I passed the creek where I had planned to anchor for the night, it looked all shoaled over so I just kept going. 

Then, when I got to about a mile below Fernandina, I came to an area where the Coast Guard had placed several temporary buoy's marking shoals that move around frequently.  As I approached the area, I thought I was in the perfect position and ran aground for the third time.  But this time, it was not a bump.  This time I slowed to a STOP.  For 20 minutes, I tried everything.  It was low tide so I knew it would only be a matter of time before I'd be lifted off.  On the down side, the wind was pushing me toward the shallow side of the ICW.  Finally, after 6 or 7 attempts at spinning right and left, I began to move back to where I had come from and was off.  I went about 300' back and moved over to very close to the west shore - where there was 10' of water.  I proceeded through all the temporary buoy's and had no issues after that. 

I got in at around 6:30pm.  It was another day that I was glad to have behind me.

Journey at anchor