St. Augustine, FL to Cumberland Island, GA

St. Augustine, Florida has always been one of our favorite stops along the Florida coast! Since it is the oldest city in the United States, it has a lot of old world charm. We only planned on staying for a night or 2, but ended up staying for 5. The mooring field is in a great location right downtown and near the fort, so we always enjoy just strolling around, taking in the architectural beauty!

We typically prefer to anchor out in pretty places because it is free and peaceful, however, every so often we will pop into a mooring field to take advantage of their amenities, such as laundry, a dinghy dock to pick up groceries, refill water, get Amazon deliveries, etc. We did all of the above in St. Augustine!

After all of our chores were done, we did manage to squeeze in one night out!  

We started with a cocktail at Prohibition Kitchen, then stopped in for an impromptu tasting at City Gate Distillery. They have a new Mango Datil flavored whiskey that we bought and used to season our chicken last night (Dustin's idea) and it was delicious! I mixed that into a stir fry with broccoli, carrots, red onion, kale, long grain wild rice, cilantro, lime juice, sweet potatoes and chunks of mango. I have to say, it turned out pretty yummy!

After stopping in at the distillery, we decided on a small upscale pizzeria called "Pizzalley's" that lured us in with free samples of their delicious pizza on the sidewalk. We ordered arancini (risotto and cheese stuffed balls) for the appetizer and then split a small pizza and lasagna for dinner. It was all sooooo good and a fun night out!

Yesterday we left St. Augustine and continued north! We got as far as the northern tip of Cumberland Island, Georgia before deciding to drop anchor for the night in the East River near St. Andrew Sound.

If you've been following our journey for awhile, then you'll remember that Cumberland Island, Georgia is where we saw wild horses walking along the beach on the ocean! We also visited the Dungeness Ruins there and found our first shark teeth along the beaches of this island. That day, a little over a year ago, is still regarded as one of my top ten days of this entire journey! It was just magical seeing the wild, untamed horses running free throughout the island and it was a day, I'll never forget. Sometimes the first time you experience something, it's not the same the second time you go back because the magic of it being new isn't there this time. In an effort to maintain that perfect memory of this beautiful place, we opted not to stop there this time through so that our memories of Cumberland Island will forever be one that we look back on and smile. However, the horses were visible all over the western shoreline as we passed by and so it was fantastic to be able to see them once again!!  

We had planned on going out into the ocean today to bypass the Georgia stretch of the ICW because it would have cut off a couple of hours and avoided some notoriously very shallow sections, but the forecast was calling for up to 6 foot waves with a small craft advisory, so we chose to be smart and go the long route. There were definitely some very shallow areas at low tide around Jekyll Island today, but we made it through fine, thank the Lord!

It's been a beautiful day of cruising so far today!