Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), Florida Day 1 - Jacksonville to St Augustine

We were so pleased to finally be able to leave Jacksonville and make some more miles south but we were still unable to rush off very early because we were waiting for the tide and the water to rise slightly.  Our major concern on leaving to journey down the ICW is will there be enough water for our 7ft depth, there is supposed to be enough depth but there is often shoaling so we have to be very cautious, what we are thankful of it that other cruisers are able to add obstructions and changes to what is charted to Active Captain which is a website up set up by cruisers for cruisers.

With hundreds of miles to transit in the ICW it is a daunting task but everything was new for us again.  The wildlife is amazing; we saw dolphins within the first 30 minutes, they do not visit the boat like when you are at sea but just quietly pass on by.

There is a large number of seabirds along the ICW including the ever present pelican and cormorant.

Pelicans on the shore

It was the weekend so we were joined by lots of little fishing boats and everyone had a friendly wave as the passed.  The ICW is often through very remote areas and in Florida this is frequently marshland but this was also our first experience of the Florida shoreside properties, they differed from the wooden colonial style houses we had seen further north and often they have a more Mediterranean villa look about them and often are huge, all with there own dock usually with a small powerboat lifted out of the water, we did see some with multiple boats, jet skis and kayaks.

Shoreline property

The boat house lining the ICW

Great boat house 

The wilderness of the shoreline

But the very changing scenery and the sunshine was enough to make this less boring than expected, we never gain that much pleasure from having to motor rather than sail.

Our plan was to stop in St Augustine which is supposed to be a very pretty town, it was established by the Spanish in the 1600s.  We had hoped to turn up and get on a mooring buoy as anchoring in the strong running river is very limited, unfortunately even though there are around 100 buoys there were none free! This is how busy it gets at this time of year with boats heading south, primarily American but a good proportion of Canadian and a small splattering of other nationalities.

St Augustine

We were disappointed as we had to head south past St Augustine to fine ourselves somewhere to anchor for the night.  We did have some entertainment before we left, there was a Pirate pleasure boat taking tourists out in the harbour and the were attack by another ship, the kids were having great fun as the pirates fought on deck and we jumped every time the cannon blasted!

Great fun on the pirate ships

With strong winds forecast overnight we were a little concerned but we dropped anchor and a relatively peaceful night.