Where is GYPSEA?

Well, we made it to St. Augustine yesterday and in much better time than expected! We averaged 20-23 knots (25-27 mph). Thankfully our boater friend from RI offered that after an initially bumpy ride it would settle down when we headed true north at Merit Island, so we went for it. The Fort Pierce inlet lived up to its reputation of being pretty squirrelly as we were leaving, and we did follow advice about heading in/out as close to slack tied as possible. The initial 2.5 hours of our ride waves were 3 feet with definite 4 footers thrown in. GYPSEA can handle this fine, but it was a learning curve for what we wanted to be riding in, especially with now having our helm only in the flybridge, so you definitely feel it more up there. Kind of like being in a washing machine with constant tossing and turning, although our Seakeeper (gyroscope on the boat which will correct any medial/lateral displacement of the boat almost instantaneously) did a good job taking the edge off. Definitely a few white knuckle moments but by the time we got to the Cape Canaveral space area, we both agreed the seas had calmed down enough that we wanted to continue our outside run to St. Augustine. We made it into the St. Augustine inlet within 2 hours of high tide which was necessary as with our 5′ draft (amount of boat that sits below the surface of the water) there are some shoals (areas of shifting sand) that reduce the depth of the channel ,and if you don’t stay in the recommended areas of the channel you could run aground. This was highlighted by an unfortunate catamaran sailboat that did just that last week ( To learn more about this story see the St. Augustine Fire Dept. post on April 28 https://www.facebook.com/citystaugfire ). They apparently did a stellar job rescuing the boaters and their dog. Learning of this was enough to keep us hyper-vigilant as we entered the St. Augustine inlet, which we actually did with ease! Of note I learned of this story from another FB group I found and joined which devotes itself to navigating the inlets on the east coast. It is also a private group, but approval was granted without my answering any questions. Navigating Inlets of the East Coast USA. It is set up nicely so you can find the name of the inlet and then just read posts that relate to it. Docking was a breeze at the lovely Windward at Comachee Cove Yacht Harbor Marina. Dockhands were there to guide us in and help with docking and we were able to fuel up right at our dock! Our Boat US membership gave us .10 off per gallon on fuel coast, which with the amount of fuel we need to get actually took $65 off the cost! Thanks Boat US! So once Carl rinsed the salt and seawater off GYPSEA and I tidied up inside, we were off to explore St. Augustine by 3 pm. In lieu of a free car to use (which is typical of many marinas if there are not stores near by for provisioning, or they are not easily walkable to sightseeing) they offered free round trip Uber rides into the city center. They also offered a welcome bag which included a nice wine glass! Seems silly but these marina welcome bags get me every time! And of course included was the mandatory can koozie with the marina logo on it. We must be up to 25-30 by now!..but use them all! So Thank you Comachee Cove! We have been using Dockwa to book our marina stays and often will call the marinas as well to get an idea of availability as there is only a pending reservation for a while on Dockwa until the marina has time to look at it and confirm they have space for you. This way we might find out right away that we need to move on to another marina.

St. Augustine definitely lived up to the charm and old world feel we were expecting. Don’t want to ruin the experience for others who haven’t been so will post just a few pics. The Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (fort) is pretty amazing. Since we had a late day arrival we did not do the full tour but did walk around the grounds and then moved on to the city center. We passed the Fountain of Youth on our way to the fort! The anti-aging creams will have to do for now, no time to take a dip there! Too tired to cook today, but promise (well with my fingers crossed behind my back ;)) I will do some cooking tomorrow! A local woman walked up to us and recognized we were in a quandary about where we should go for dinner and offered some great advice. We ended up at the Floridian. We were told it was a farm to table restaurant. It had so much old Florida charm, and the menu offered some really interesting and eclectic choices. I had a delicious chicken curry dish. After dinner, back to the marina and we were tucked in by 7:30 pm just after the best part of my day; a facetime call with my daughter and grandson Luca who I miss like crazy! Up now writing this blog at 5:30 am, will have to wait until close to 8 to shove off so the tide will rise enough to be sure to accommodate our draft. With wave heights of 1 feet predicted, we are going to run the outside (i.e. open ocean) again today and make our way to Hilton Head, S.C…will keep you posted in my next Post!

Sunrise leaving Fort Pierce

Amazing seeing all the launch pads as we passed the space coast!

Took the advice of FB contributors and loaded Aqua Maps on my phone (top pic) so if we had any issues with the Garmin screens at our helm we would have immediate back up. Easier for me to see too and can set way points, look at wind, current, wave heights, etc.,

Entering St. Augustine inlet. You can see the famous St. Augustine Lighthouse in the distance. Hope our exit is just as smooth!

Quaint streets of St. Augustine and the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the USA!

My delicious chicken curry at the Floridian.