St. Augustine, Florida And Camachee Cove Yacht Harbor
This is the second article to be submitted to the Cruisers’ Net by our fearless roving reporter, Captain Jane Tigar!!! What a great report about one of our favorite ports of call in northeastern Florida!
St. Augustine is a favorite stop of ours and this year, our late start, while troublesome from the point of view of one cold front and small craft advisory after another, also meant we spent Christmas and New Year’s in St. Augustine. This happenstance means we can enthusiastically recommend a visit to St. Augustine during the winter holidays. Do they put on a light show! It’s just magical to walk around downtown at night with the Bridge of Lions and shops and streets all lit up.
Camachee Cove Yacht Harbor
Our favorite place to dock in St. Augustine is Camachee Cove [A SALTY SOUTHEAST CRUISERS’ NET SPONSOR]. I know, I know, unlike from the city marina, you can’t just walk into downtown, but staying on the north side of the Bridge of Lions opens to you other charms of this great city you might otherwise skip. Besides, with two courtesy cars and easy pick up service from Enterprise a mile or so away, all of the city is available to you.
Camachee Cove features enthusiastic ‘can do’ staff, the afore-mentioned two courtesy cars, clean and modern facilities, three strategically-located heads/showers/laundry, a restaurant, a breakfast and lunch cafe, the best book swap on the ICW, a great engine guy and ship’s store, and now, there’s also a place to buy fresh fish.
It also offers superb sunrise and sunset vistas and, as it is surrounded by wetlands, there is wonderful birdwatching. The proof is in the two photographs here from A dock.
Camachee Cove features easy access with a clearly marked channel on the ICW parallel to the Vilano high rise bridge. Make note that this is a great place to stop Northbound if you want to get the Bridge of Lions current opening issues out of the way. Just keep an eye on the side-moving current as you enter the channel — you may need to keep up the revs to stay on course.
Vilano Bridge at Sunrise
New at Camachee Cove: Fresh seafood store.
Camachee Island Seafood opened three months ago. We bought a beautiful piece of fish, reasonably priced, from proprietor Bill Bailey. His son caught this Cobia, not your usual fish item at the super market and it was delicious. While you are waiting for Mr. Bailey to wrap your fish, check out the photos on the wall, including some “vintage” photos of Mr. Bailey fishing and some more recent of his son. One particularly striking photo shows his son releasing a marlin. By the way, I have never seen a cleaner fish store. The day we were there, there was a good selection of fresh wild caught fish, shrimp, and clams and also some items in the freezer like snow crab legs. Mr. Bailey also sells a variety of condiments such as cornmeal fry coating and sauces on shelves.
Camachee Cove: A great stop for engine work, canvas, or boat supplies.
This is also a good stopping point on your way south or north if you need any work done on your boat. We had some canvas work done at Coopers, right here in the Camachee Cove complex; they did a superb job at a fair price. We have had excellent experiences over the years at First Mate. Bo does fantastic and smart engine work — we’ve relied upon his talents and services over the years and been very pleased. They also have a well-stocked ship’s store.
I hope this gives you an idea of why Camachee Cove Yacht Harbor is a favorite home away from home for Lady Jane. If we need to leave the boat here we know she is safe and well looked after.
While you are here, you may see the famous vessel “Chez Nous.” Yes, it’s “the” Chez Nous owned by cruising writers Tom and Mel Neale. If they’re in residence, stop by and say hello. Their daughter Melanie, whose growing up aboard the first Chez Nous is well chronicled in books you may have in your ship’s library, is now grown up and works at Camachee Cove Marina. In fact, she may be the one who answers your hail for docking assignment and instructions.
"A" Dock Resident - Snowy Egret Reprovisioning
Our favorite things to do in St. Augustine.
I love the antique carousel that is at the intersection of A1A and the road to Camachee Cove. The colorful horses, the friendly guy who makes sure you know if you got on one of the horses that doesn’t go up and down, the smiling children, the parents snapping photos outside … Bah Recession Humbugs, you can get all this joy for a dollar a ride.
If you’ve never sampled the sulfury brew from the Fountain of Youth — that’s a tour you should take at least once in your life. It’s hokey, historical, pseudo-historical and just plain fun. The same goes for the planetarium show — this is a very old planetarium and it’s a hoot and there’s a special kind of magic when you are seeing something this great great grandparent (gender neutral!) of the modern day high-tech planetarium shows that leave comparatively little to the imagination.
Food, food, food.
Our St. Augustine rituals include at least one visit to the Gypsy Cab Company restaurant. If you’re staying at Camachee Cove, you can book the courtesy car and it’s a short drive across the Bridge of Lions to get here. Don’t miss their house-made salad dressing — it’s liquid gold as the proprietor says. Made fresh every day, if you buy a bottle, note that you have to use it up within two weeks — no preservatives, this is the real deal.
St. Augustine isn’t St. Augustine for us without a pilgrimage to the Manatee Cafe. It’s technically health food-oriented, but even a health-food phobic person will have a good time here. We won’t reveal his name but we witnessed a hard core meat and potatoes guy chow down a lunch that included sprouts and admitting, with a wry smile that this is really good food.
Manatee Cafe is only open for breakfast, brunch and lunch — and despite the whole grains and vegetarian emphasis, they incongruously serve the best home fries I’ve ever had.
Michael, my first mate, and I are both fans of the burritos — full of fresh raw vegetables, hummus, black beans…
And, there’s a little store section in the front if you need to re-provision some of those special health-food items, from local honey in bear squeeze bottles to brewer’s yeast and yes, that important staple for some of us — organic chocolate bars.
We also have enjoyed Little Havana restaurant downtown — it’s a surprisingly low-cost restaurant delivering authentic (we think!) Cuban food. The specials are very gentle on the wallet and some nights there is live music.
For Camachee Cove transients, note that you can book the courtesy car for the evening, or, as we did on Christmas Day, we shared a car with another transient sailboat, making friends while we were at it.
Capt. Jane got it right. This resident shares the high regard for Camachee, and would only add that Sailors Exchange on west King street is a great place to discover treasures you always wanted and never expected to find.
Capt. Jay
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