We pulled our anchor at 7am to begin our journey to St. Augustine inlet about 200 nautical miles away. We were figuring it would take 30 hours. We started out with less wind than expected but that was okay when you were out in the open water like we were. We had a visitor on our boat. A small bird came and sat with us and even flew into our cabin. There ended up being at least two and they were sitting on our lifelines. They visited Brunelle and Pekabu and checked out all of our cabins. We had some bread out for them to eat but they didn't seem to want it. We enjoyed their company.
One of our visitor with no land in sight for 50 miles
Our strategy was to head NW to the center of the gulf stream and to allow the current to carry us north. Reaching the center late in the evening and heading north, the winds increased more than we expected. Our sails were up and, with motor assist, we travelled at one point at 11.1 knots. We wanted to travel 70 miles in the fast current. We had rollers going in the opposite direction so it was a little tough handling the boat but John did a terrific job. We did not get a chance to sleep much during that night because the rocking was a bit much. At day break, it was time to head to St. Augustine, the last 40 miles of the trip. As we were approaching St. Augustine dolphins were swimming next to us and began diving under the boat and having a great time. We also encountered a rain shower with strong winds and nasty looking clouds. Once we passed through the shower the inlet was calm and, at high tide, just perfect. We arrived in our slip at 2pm, called customs, and just enjoyed relaxing. We purchased a boat decal in December with the hopes of entering the US; it would lessen our chance of customs needing to see us in person. It didn’t happen like that. All three boats had to appear before customs with our passports and documentations within 24 hours. The next issue was that the customs officer at St. Augustine was off Tuesday and Wednesday. We had to head up to Jacksonville the next morning to appear there at the custom's office.
There was one very interesting fact we observed during our crossing. The sea temperature at the time we pulled our anchor on the Little Bahamas Bank was 88 degrees. While we were in the Gulf Stream it was 92.5 degrees and at our arrival in St. Augustine it was 78 degrees. The air temperature was also quite a shock. We arrived in St. Augustine with long pants and sweat shirts on. This was the first time I had long pants on in over two months, if not longer. I wasn’t sure where they were on Andiamo.
Andiamo under sail
We all retired early that day and slept a good 12 hours or more.
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