[southwindphoto]

This past Saturday I elected to take my boat for a spin.
I moor my boat about 2 miles from the inlet and thus anytime we go anywhere we have tidal flow to contend with. .

Most days it’s 1-2 knots, so no big deal. This past Saturday it was more like 5 knots, we stopped at the City Marina for ice and the Harbour Master told us today’s 4 ½ knots was bad, but he has seen it up to 7 knots.

What do you do when you enter an inland area with a tidal flow like this...? Does your sailboat have sufficient power to out power the flow so you can maintain bear minimum steerage, either into or with the tide?

Not only is downtown St Augustine that way, but so downtown Jacksonville and I’m sure there are many such area.

Sure I know the easy response it wait for the tide to slack, but for a working person, with limited time each week on the water, waiting six hours is a luxury, not readily available.

Our answer was to move the boat to salt run bay... Much slower flow, but we still have the main bay and inlet flow to contend with.