Scott here. Today we left Daytona and headed to St. Augustine. Fairly easy travel day with only one area that that made me a little nervous. There was lots of shoaling, the channel was not very wide, and our potential short stop anchorage was right near here as well.

We didn’t stop at that anchorage though and kept going toward St. Augustine. About an hour out we started looking at the different anchorages in the area. None of them had a good option to get to shore for Jazzy, other than paying the city Marina $12 a day to tie up the dinghy, which we would have done if needed.

However, about a mile up we saw two anchorages near Vilano Beach. Vilano Beach has a city dock where we can tie the dinghy for up to 4-hours. We decided to go there, especially since we both have been to St. Augustine before so this was a good option.

There were not a lot of boats in the 1st anchorage so we decided to stop there for two nights. It took three tries but we finally set the anchor!

If you look closely you can see the black lines going from the bottom up. We dropped the anchor, let out 60′ of anchor rode and backed down on it to get the anchor to set. Looking at the black line left to right, you can see it didn’t work. The anchor was dragging. So, we moved a little farther up, and on the third tryh were able to set it (but did we?) The pink line is our anchor track. We dragged! Of course, we dragged while I was taking Jazzy for a walk and the alarm was going off with just Rita in the boat. You will have to ask her about that!

We pulled up the anchor and moved about 350′ closer to channel, but much farther away from the other boats.

Here you can see where we tried to anchor and where we are now. It has only been 30 minutes but we seem to be stuck in the mud pretty good. The free dock is right at the top of the photo so it is really close.

Now I am sure you are wondering how we did. Let’s take a look, but remember we went 1-2 miles farther than anticipated.

Plan v ACTUAL
Date: March 25, 2024
Nebo Link: Click here
Spot Link: Click here
Crew: Captain Scott, 1st Mate Rita, & K9 Jazzy
Start at: 9:00 am ACTUAL 8:40 AM
End at: 3:30 pm ACTUAL 3:13 PM
Total Time: 6:30 hours (6:03 travel time plus time for no wake zones and to anchor) ACTUAL 6:12 HOURS
Distance: 54.6 miles ACTUAL 56.7 MILES