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| Hotel Alcazar Original Pool |
We had a fun time yesterday (Sunday) during our 1-day
weather delay; we went into old St. Augustine and did the
tourista thing with Kathy – eating lunch at the historic Hotel
Alcazar building (once home of the world’s largest indoor swimming pool, which now
hosts the Café Alcazar restaurant and the Lightner Museum.) We also did a lot of walking in the historic
Lincolnville District,
or put another way, Rick got conned into a geo-caching exercise with Kathy and
Michelle.
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| From Pool to Restaurant |
We slept late the next day, made final departure
preparations and tossed off the lines around 1345 on Monday 27-Jun. The exit via the St. Augustine inlet was
straightforward and uneventful thanks to a high tide and very benign conditions
on the outside…although it’s notable that charts do not depict the channel
markers, as they get moved around a lot to accommodate the constant shoaling
there. In good visibility (daylight) it's fine, but otherwise the interval and size of the markers would be challenging to pick up. The channel also extends to
nearly 2NM offshore before you can be sure you’re in deep enough water to make
the turn north.
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| Harbor Town Lighthouse from the FB |
Winds were light from the northeast, with seas running
around 3 feet, but with comfortable intervals, initially around 8 seconds, then
later in the day down to 4 seconds – it was similar to a smooth rocking chair
ride. Sky conditions were mostly “severe
clear” – some widely scattered high cirrus clouds in the distance, with the
radar and XM weather screens clear of precipitation along our track. We ran sans generator but with an ambient
temperature of 85F during the day, and around 80F after sunset, with the sea
breeze we remained comfy underway.
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| Harbor Town Marina from the FB |
As darkness fell Rick took the first night watch, manning
the helm until 0200 (Tuesday), with continued good weather and sea conditions. Moonrise wasn’t until 0145, so it was IMC for
a good part of the night. Chelle assumed
the watch from 0230 to 0700, and then Rick took it from there into Hilton Head. We approached from the east through the Savannah
entry channel and then veered off to the north to enter Calibogue Sound, and while that area
is subject to frequent shoaling and some interesting cross-currents, we
maintained adequate depth and steerage throughout the approach (with some local
advice), arriving Harbor Town Marina shortly after 1100, making for just under
22 hours of sortie time.
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View of Ghost Rider from the Harbor
Town Lighthouse / Museum |
Then it was bath time – both for the boat and ourselves –
followed by an afternoon of the usual boat chores and casual distractions. We also hung out here again on Wednesday 29-Jun to explore the local area, and lunched on fresh grouper and shrimp before the TRWs moved in.
Exactly when we depart for Edisto will depend on when we can find a suitable weather window, and right now we're sandwiched between a nearby cold front and an upper level trough (which are occasionally triggering some severe cells) -- and the so-called experts can't seem to discern where they're going or when. In cases like this it's best to wait until the next morning to see what's cooking out there.
