We really did enjoy St. Augustine and wanted to stay longer, but it was time for us to get back on the road ICW. Getting out of the marina was going to be a little tricky. The way our slip was oriented, we were in bow first with a 30 foot finger pier on the port side. The slip on our starboard was longer and all it had was a piling about 15 feet behind us on the aft starboard. To add to it, the boat next to us stuck out of the slip and there was a large catamaran on the T of the dock behind us. All of these factors meant that the entrance to the fairway was narrow and we would have to back out and pivot sometime after our bow cleared the pilings and before we backed into the cat. To top it off, we had a stiff 15 knot SW wind that was pushing us into our neighbor boat.

Taking all of these factors into account, we decided to set sail on the high slack tide late on Friday afternoon. It afforded us daylight and someone to help on the dock with the best weather conditions we could expect for the foreseeable future. Plus, with a slack tide, we would only have to fight the wind and not the current.

When the time came, Paul, the Dock Master, and our boat neighbor came to help. They held the bow line on the dock to keep our bow straight and walked us back as I backed out. When they got to the end of the dock, they tossed our lines on board. Thankfully, with good communication and a little luck, we got out without a hitch. Off we went!

Since it was late in the day, we just planned to go about 17 miles up the ICW to anchor in an oxbow off the ICW on the south side of Pine Island.

We sailed under the famed Bridge of Lions, past downtown and the fort, and out toward the inlet. It was sad to leave St. Augustine in our wake, but it was fun to think about the thousands and thousands of sailors who had had the same view from the water over the hundreds of years that the fort’s cannon had watched them navigate that inlet.

After a short sail, we found out anchorage. There were two sail boats already there and a tug tucked way back. We scouted out our spot between the sail boats and the tug and dropped the hook in about 8 feet of water.

A few more boats came into the anchorage before nightfall, but it was a quiet night on the hook.