Rock House Creek – An anchoring experience to remember!

Rock House Creek – An anchoring experience to remember!

Monday 14th December

So this is how our day went … We were up at 6.15 am warming coffee to get us going and then agonizing about whether to move on or stay another day until the weather forecast was better. It wasn’t a bad forecast for today, just fairly stiff winds (10-20 mph) from the south west that we thought might add to the challenges of motoring 50 miles. In the end we decided to go for it and we are glad that we did. The journey was just fine. For the first two hours we had positive current that boosted our speed to more than 8 knots. The adverse wind didn’t really pick up until we were half way to our destination and it didn’t cause us any problems. We did encounter some shallow sections, most notably near the north cut to Ponce de Leon inlet where we saw 8.5 ft. The real excitement came when we turned into Rock House Creek to anchor. There were already a number of boats in the anchorage so we got squeezed between the north shore and the boats that were already there. The problem was getting turned around with the wind and strong current behind us and a narrow tapering channel in front. We turned to starboard so that when we hit reverse the propeller “walk” would pull us around … except with the wind on the bow we kept drifting sideways down this ever shrinking channel. The owner of one catamaran seemed a little concerned as we swept by, but we gunned the engine and powered around before dropping hook in our desired location. When all had settled down we ended up in the deepest section of water (11 feet at low tide) but closer to the shore than we have ever anchored previously (60 feet, a little more than one boat-length). As we have 80 feet of chain out it’s maybe just as well that the wind will not be pushing us towards this shore! Actually it’s perfectly fine. We just spent a wonderful half hour drinking a beer and eating chips, avocado and hot sauce. As the current changed to flood, some 3 hours after low, we gently swung around and are now facing the opposite way, still 60 feet offshore. What could possibly go wrong! 

Tonight we  had chicken tagine with rice and “duvet lifters” (Brussels sprouts) for dinner - delicious!

Mike

29 03.686 N, 80 55.902 W

I think these weird clouds, which we observed mid-way through our trip today, reflect the passing of a cold front, which in turn brought on the stronger winds

Rock House Creek anchorage - actually quite lovely!