Utopia finally returns to Florida!
- sondrawinter
- 15 minutes ago
- 5 min read
After being away since January, Utopia returns to her home state of Florida. She also concludes her travels for the year.
Cumberland Island, GA to Daytona Beach, FL
Wednesday, November 5 to Thursday, November 12
105 NM | 120 miles
Cumberland Island, GA to Fernandina Beach, FL
Wednesday, November 5
5.9 NM
Because we love the Cumberland Island anchorage, our original plan was to stay at Cumberland Island a third night, then head to Fernandina Beach Thursday morning for some lab work needed for upcoming annual physicals. However, we would not arrive at the lab until after noon, and with the need to fast for the blood work, this was sounding rather unpleasant. So, we decided to head to Fernandina Beach Wednesday afternoon.
We left the anchorage with the end of an ebb tide, motored out into St. Marys River and crossed into Florida! This was the first time Utopia has been back to Florida since leaving 10 months ago.
About an hour after weighing anchor, we were on a mooring ball off Amelia Island and the downtown area of Fernandina Beach. Oh, what a different setting this spot is compared to the quiet and dark Cumberland Island anchorage. While downtown Fernandina Beach is cute, there is very heavy industry north and south of town making a lot of noise, putting out a lot of light along with some odd scents. It just might be one of the ugliest waterside places we have taken Utopia.
Planned Medical Errand in Fernandina Beach
Thursday, November 6
On Thursday morning, we climbed into the dinghy at 6:30 a.m., dinghied to shore and walked two miles to a medical laboratory. Thankfully the wait was reasonable, and by 7:50 a.m. we were out of the facility. We headed back to the downtown area of Fernandina Beach and stopped for breakfast at T-Rays, a local dinner. After breakfast we waddled around town a bit before stopping at the dockmaster’s office to pay for our mooring ball and taking showers in the marina bathhouse. Honestly, we are both a little fatigued from our two days of hiking on Cumberland Island, so we were happy to have returned to the boat around 10:30 a.m. and to fill the rest of the day up with low exertion activities.
Fernandina Beach to St. Augustine
45 NM | Friday, November 7
7.9 NM | Saturday, November 8
The currents in this part of the coast can be quite strong, so timing your routes with the currents is highly advantageous. Thus, Friday morning we slipped form the mooring ball just before sunrise headed south down the Amelia River. For the most part we had current with us more often than opposed along the way.
Saturday morning, we took our time with getting ready to move so that we did not arrive at the City of St. Augustine mooring field too early. We overlooked the currents for this short trip and as we approached the St. Augustine Inlet around 11:15 a.m., we realized that we were going to miss the 11:30 bridge opening by 10 minutes. So, we spent the next 45 minutes of our route to the Bride of Lions going as slow as possible for the noon opening. Still, we sat in the wide area north of the bridge with several other boats for 10 minutes. Thankfully it was just past slack tide with an ebb starting to give us some counter current. Utopia was tied up to a mooring ball by 12:30.
St. Augustine
Saturday, November 8 – Monday, November 10
Once the boat was settled on the mooring ball, we needed to head to the marina office to check in. Since we were on land after being on the boat for 48 hours, we took a walk around town and ate a late lunch/early dinner before heading back out to the boat. It turns out that most of our time during this visit to St. Augustine was spent doing little boat projects with making it to shore at least once a day to stroll the streets.
Sunday morning, we had a pleasant surprise meeting of the crew of Heartstring at the dinghy docks. Years ago, they owned our former boat About Time, a 32’ Sabre. Back when they owned her, she was named Forget Me Knot. Scott had reached out to me when he stumbled across the listing I made back when we sold her in 2021 (Post 23-34). We were both on a track to eventually move aboard a larger cruising boat for full time sailing. So, after years of talking to each other and both of us sharing our progress, it was great to finally meet him, his wife Jennifer, and their daughter Alyssa in person. Hopefully our paths will cross again, and we can spend some more time together.
St. Augustine to Daytona Beach
45 NM | Tuesday, November 11
The final long day on the ICW was a very, very chilly one. We woke up with the temperature in the cabin in the 40’s and we could see our breath. When we slipped from the mooring ball before 7 am wind speed was a steady 15 to 20 knots making the 35-degree weather feel a lot lower.
After a mind-numbing number of miles and a handful of bridges later, we dropped the anchor on the north side of Daytona’s Seabreeze Bridge in current vs. wind conditions. With these conditions, Utopia constantly swung back and forth, getting very close to shoaling and then reaching the edge of the ICW channel. On top of that the water was very choppy due to a long fetch of the north wind. After seeing a big trawler in the ICW pass closely by us, we decided to pull up anchor and hunt for a new anchorage. We moved south passing several bridges and just before 4 p.m. we found a wider, calmer spot south of the Memorial Bridge.
Halifax Harbor Marina, Daytona Beach
0.64 NM | Wednesday, November 12
Our anchorage was situated across the ICW from the marina we were heading too. After getting word from the marina that our slip was available, we weighed anchor and crossed over to the marina. The depth meter on our boat showed a zero reading as we moved down the fairway but never ran aground. Docking was easy, but tying up in the fixed dock slip was a little awkward without any cleats available. The dockmaster, Coach is super nice and made some recommendations for a couple of local restaurants.
Once we had the boat tidied up and we settled up with the marina office we walked downtown for lunch. It was interesting to walk around knowing that this will be our home for the next 10 weeks.
Post 25-46
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