Wednesday, April 24, 2013 – Daytona (Mile 837) to St. Augustine (Mile 780):

            Well, I couldn’t believe it, but we woke up to a beautiful blue sky, looking glass water, and hardly any wind.  What a surprise, and we deserved it!  We fell asleep on the couch last night, and went to bed at 9:00 p.m., which was way too early because we woke up at 3:00 a.m. and wondered how we were going to go back to sleep and get up in a couple of hours so we could get on our way again.   But we did.

            We had a mess of bridges to go through today, and the scary Matanzas Inlet so at breakfast I am thinking of starting to bite my nails now and not wait till the last minute.   This could very well be the “run aground” day, and as we leave the Adventure Yacht Harbor I hope we don’t have the “adventure” ahead of us. 

            So the first bridge we have to go under is the Port Orange Bridge which is 65’ so no problem there.  The next bridge (Dayton Beach – Memorial Twin Bridge – 21’ high) has some restricted openings in the morning and afternoon, but we plan our approach, and the bridge tender opens for us right away.  The next bridge is another Daytona Bridge, but is 65’ high so no problem there either.  This is a beautiful bridge with colorful mosaics of swimming dolphins decorating the pilings that hold the bridge up.  You could get in trouble if you gazed at the pilings rather than watched where you were going!  Next up is the Daytona Beach – Main Street Bridge which only has a clearance of 22’, but the bridge tender opens for us right away, and we cruise under that one.  Then we have the Daytona Beach-Seabreeze Twin Bridges, which are both 65’ so no problem there either.  Daytona sure has one heck of a lot of bridges (I guess everyone wants to get to the beaches, and there are lots of ways to get there)!  There are little fishing boats everywhere, including under the bridges, and you have to keep a sharp eye out for the boats and watch your speed in here. 

            Finally, we leave Daytona behind and are cruising in the Halifax River.  Little islands dot the land side of the waterway, and houses upon houses jumble up the ocean side which pretty much describes most of the waterway. 

Pelicans sunbathing along the waterway

Strange rock formations along the waterway

            At Mile 825 we pass under the Ormond Street Bridge (65’ high), and at Mile 816 we have to request a bridge opening at the L.B. Knox Bridge, which is only 15 feet high, but the bridge tender tells us that the bridge will be open when we get up to it.  We pass Flagler Beach and pass under the Flagler Beach Bridge (65’ high), then through part of the waterway called Fox Cut, then under the Palm Coast Parkway Bridge (65’ high).

            I go down and make lunch, and start contemplating the nail biting as the Matanzas Inlet is coming up.  I seem to recall that the marks could be confusing as to which were the little temporary marks that were moved as the area shoaled in and which were the marks that designated the inlet out to the ocean.  Actually, I didn’t really have to worry about heading out to the ocean as there is really not enough water to get to the ocean from this inlet anyway. 

            I admonished Bob to go really slow through here as we had also heard that you really had to “feel” you way around the shoals, but just as I said “slow down”, a beautiful motor yacht zipped past us without a thought as to going slow through this area; and after that another beautiful boat zoomed past us also.  Well, maybe I was wrong about going slow.  In actuality, the area was very well marked, we never saw any less than about 9’ of water in the channel here, and the tide was going out!

You can see the ocean over the dunes

Getting ready to navigate the inlet

            One of the boats that passed us, was a beautiful wooden boat.  It was so unusual that I googled the boat, and this is what I found:

“Retromoderne Yacht Design, in collaboration with Bill Prince Yacht Design and the Brooklin Boat Yard have created the most elegant, modern-classic luxury mega yacht tender series in the world, inspired by the legendary design of John L. Hacker. POSH luxury yacht tenders are a beautiful blend of timeless art deco designs of the 1930s with today’s yacht building techniques, unrivalled craftsmanship, the latest in superyacht technology and bespoke amenities from renown luxury brands. A luxury superyacht tender POSH transcends mere yacht ownership, POSH is an extraordinary, elite luxury lifestyle experience.”

POSH

Once we got past the Matanzas Inlet we had to go under the Cresent Beach Bridge, which is only 25’ high, but Bob said we could squeak under, and we did.  Phew!  All told, we have navigated 12 bridges today.  We are now in the Matanzas River and getting very close to St. Augustine.  The tide is nearing low, and you can see all kinds of shoreline, shoals, and sandbars that you can’t see at any other time.  I was thankful that we had plenty of water in the channel, so it was very interesting to see what is usually covered up by water.  There are many, many little islands that appear at low tide covered by mussels and other shellfish creatures.  We are starting to get back into the area where there are large tidal ranges.

This is what happens if you don't stay in the channel!

We cruise under the State Road 312 Bridge (65’ high), and turn left into the San Sebastian River and head up to the Rivers Edge Marina where we will spend the night.

            You may remember (although I don’t know why) my blog about this marina when we were here back in November.  This is the restaurant that had karaoke night, and Bob was crestfallen because we couldn’t sit inside, but the nice, but very drunk man outside told us he would give us his table inside???  Yeah – remember all this?  Well, here we are again!  I had planned to have steak and sautéed spinach for dinner, but I see Bob looking longingly at the restaurant.  I don’t have the heart to tell him it’s not karaoke night!