Hey sailor fans.
As most of you know we have been mostly roughing it down the eastern seaboard. We are NOT spoiled wealthy baby boomers with enough income to waste spending a hundred + dollars per night at marinas. We generally are on a small budget and we anchor out as much as we can.
BUT….
I want to highly recommend St. Agustines city marina to everyone…. and here’s why…
So as for the Ocean channel entrance for St. Augustine we want to let you know that as of now (Dec 18 2018) when we came in a few days ago the
channel was dredged… well marked… and deep. We came in at high tide and mostly saw 35 feet below us most of the time with a small shallow spot at 18 feet deep (so minus a 5 foot tide variance). We were hesitant to stop here because the charts say the entrance is of unknown depth and unknown markings. Have faith sailors the city takes good care of their channel and it is well maintained. Don’t be afraid to stop here.
When you get in you have to kind of go west and then a bit southy and go under the bridge of lions. It opens every half hour. Then the marina is right there on your right. They have nice clean docks and good facilities.
Here is one of the main reasons I recommend this place for the real sailors out there…. They have a great mooring field and they
only charge $25 per night for the ball. So a week cost us like $140. They COULD be gouging sailors and charging $50 or more dollars per ball (like the people more north do) but they don’t. The city likes sailors and respects sailors. They want you to visit unlike Fernandina beach. You will feel welcomed here.
The marina staff are very calm mellow
and easy going… very helpful and kind. Your mooring ball fee includes a dighy dock sticker to let you pull your dinghy (at no extra charge) into the clean new well marked dinghy docks and go explore town. They even offer a free water shuttle every 2 hours ( 10am, noon, 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm) if you don’t want to launch your dinghy.
This place is well worth the money and they do NOT try to gouge your wallet as hard as they can as many other marinas do. We view this as respectful of sailors and the sailing community. There is a great feeling to the place… and we know what a bad feeling place is like. Nothing but good vibes here.
We were just speaking with the marina manager David who
was explaining that the city of St. Agustine understands that they want tourists and want to welcome boaters. That is a good place to visit.
Of course boaters care about things like the cleanliness of the facilities and generally are they nice or grungy. St. Agustine ranks well on this point too. You can see from the images above that it is a nice place to go to get clean and feel clean after you step out of the shower. We have paid more before for places dirty and run down.
There is a good laundry facility and it is only $2 per wash and per dry in clean machines. There is a boaters lounge where you can hang out on a rainy day and watch TV and use the internet. The wifi is awesome in the building but doesn’t get out much past the ramp to the docks.
All in all WildChild and her wild children landed softly in a nice place for a weeks rest. Our first weeks rest since we left. The sun is shinning and it is 18 degrees C in December. We have a
mooring ball for a week we can afford. We are within walking distance of a great city to explore (yes it is touristy but sometimes that is ok). Yesterday we found a few free museums that were very interesting.
Probably the next weather window for us will be this weekend (Sat Dec 22 to Sun Dec 23) where we will jump about a hundred miles south to Cape Canaveral and visit our friend Tom for Christmas. Two more jumps after that and we jump across to the Bahamas in early January.
Cheers sailors
Lexi