We made our jump to Jacksonville, FL. We had to leave Fernandina before dawn to get under our first bridge of the day. We caught it on the rising morning tide. This bridge has the extra complication of sitting next to the Amelia Island railroad bridge. That one is a swing bridge that stays open unless a train is coming. Remember the early morning train in Fernandina? Yep, it wants to cross this bridge right around the time that we wanted to go under. So, we turned on our running lights and got started before sunrise. We were running with the current so that made us fast (for a sailboat). We made it to the bridges before the train did. We used our high powered flashlight to confirm that the tide had not gotten too high to get under the fixed bridge in the same fender system. Once you head into the chute, you gotta do both bridges.
The whole trip today was only about 5 hours of running time. The bridges make it tricky. Low tide comes when it comes. Luckily, you can do some research the day before. We knew that we had three more bridges all spaced about 30 minutes apart just before our final destination. All of them are reported as short (under 65’) at high tide. But, they are 2+ hours from this first bridge so we can’t run them all at low tide. We approached bridge number two around 10 am, right before high tide. It was a no-go but we knew that was going to happen. We anchored and waited for the ebb tide to give us enough room. We had estimated that mid-tide should give us the clearance that we needed. We could see the height board on the bridge from our anchor spot. It took a little longer than I thought but eventually, we got underway and under the bridge.
Bridge number three. The ebb current was strong against us but we made it through with just a bit of whip antenna tinging. The engineers protect bridge supports from wayward boats by creating a fender system to direct boats through without getting too close to the bridge itself. This narrow chute can create stronger current and some odd eddies. The water looked like it was boiling as we approached. It took some extra skill and nerve to steer through but Mike did great.
Bridge number four. The online comments about this fella are all about the strong current. It’s a fun teal green. It has two side-by-side spans and a long chute to run under both. The tide was almost low but the height boards only said 64.5’. We can get under that but it’s less clearance that I was expecting at this tide state, especially considering no one complained about clearance online. We decided to keep going… The current was pushing against us at 5-6 knots. We were traveling at less than 1 knot so we got all of this in slo-mo. The whip antennas were bending over almost completely. The height boards lied a bit AND the current was creating a standing wave under the second bridge. Yikes. It was less than a foot tall but we don’t really have any air to spare up there. Fun fact - the second span is a little shorter(!) than the first. Unfortunately, I experienced quite a bit of tiny debris raining down on me.
We have the shortest possible light stack on top of our mast. It’s only 3 inches tall. We swapped out the standard 9 inch stack when we switched to whip antennas a few years back. IT IS STILL THERE and it still works. The debris was paint chips from the bridge. That tiny light is a badass.
Green paint chunks from the bridge.
Total miles south: 662 Temperature tonight vs. Vienna: 26 degrees warmer.
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