Saturday – 12 December
St. Augustine to Palm coast
Yesterday we had heard multiple boats on the radio report grounding between green markers 81 and 83. Friends on a catamaran (shallow draft) had transited the area the day before and emailed us that they had seen a trimaran (shallow draft) caught up with one of the markers. So we wanted to be prepared and did our research.
Channel markers are in numerical sequential order and when new markers are added a letter is included. Between G81 and G83 there are 4 additional markers: G81A, G81B, G81C and G81D in quick secession really highlighting the channel. All comments said to respect these markers which we did and had no trouble – yay. (The next day we would hear a Coast Guard broadcast about an unmanned sailboat at this location — we never did find out what happened there.)
Throughout the day today we heard a lot of different Securite and PanPan messages broadcast by the United States Coast Guard.
- Capsized sail boat in the ocean
- Reports of a flare being seen
- Shipping containers may be floating and causing hazard to navigation
- Orange live preserver spotted floating in the water
- Dinghy on a jetty
- and more
A few days ago a barge headed to Puerto Rico from Jacksonville, FL reportedly lost 25 shipping containers off the coast of Florida . We have heard many horror stories of boats hitting errant shipping containers in the open ocean with catastrophic consequences. Some believe these stories are folklore and any containers that do fall into the ocean would sink quickly. Others say no, they can and do float sometimes. There were reports of pallets of coffee and other foodstuffs washing up on beaches near Cape Canaveral. Today the Coast Guard put out a Securite message reporting hazards to navigation…. sightings of shipping containers near Jacksonville. We never did hear if any were ever really spotted, but were glad we were not out in the ocean to find out.
Otherwise, it was a lovely quiet day on the inland ICW.