St. Augustine, FL - 5/30/11

Memorial Day found Ricki & I ready to just hang around the boat and do little chores since we have had all the sun and heat that we wanted for the past couple days touring the town. In our job jar for today was to catch up laundry and inventory all the food on board to get ready to move up the St. Johns River. Our food supplies are not only in the galley, but also in the chest freezer and the front cabin. We had bought a lot of things in case we ended up in the Bahamas for a month and a lot of it is still in boxes.
As you can see from the pilings, the tide here is nearly 4 feet. This is the floating dock that we are tied to.

Lucky One is tied to the T-dock at the other end of our dock. Yesterday Lucky One was hit on the bow by the sailboat that was in the slip beside him as it was moving out into the river. The incident bent his stainless anchor and trapped a passenger's leg on the sailboat between the boats as he was trying to avoid the damage. Huen will have to go to the sailboat's insurance agent Tuesday morning to file the claim for the $1,500 anchor.

Quest's home for the past few days ....

And Moor $tuff ......

This is the walkway off the docks at low tide. It is much steeper than it looks and a little slick.

From the parking lot looking at our boat. This marina is probably 95% sailboats with very few power boats. It has recently been purchased by new owners and appears to be in the process of being upgraded, however the guide book indicated cable and a pool which doesn't exist yet. When we arrived there were several old boats in the parking lot but they have now gone away.

Oh ... did I mention it was hot here? 100 degrees outside but a comfortable 71 degrees inside the boat.

Tomorrow we will be leaving for Palm Cove Marina at Jacksonville Beach as soon as Huen gets his insurance deal done. It is only about 30 miles so it won't be a long day unless we hit a bunch of no wake areas. Wednesday we will start up the St. Johns River and hope to get past Jacksonville which is about 15 miles.

St. Augustine, FL - 5/28/11 & 5/29/11

The past two days have been spent acting like tourists in St. Augustine. We had a 3 day pass on the Old Town Trolley so we were able to get a lot of use out of it since you could get on or off anywhere around the city in something like 24 spots.

5/28/11

To catch the trolley we needed to walk about 1/2 mile to the Sebastian Winery where Ricki continued her habit of picking up guys. This one was in the entry way to the winery and apparently she needed to do something while we waited on our ride.

This magnificent building was originally built by Henry Flagler as the Ponce de Leon hotel and now is the Lightener museum which also has many shops and a great restaurant that we will visit later. The restaurant is located in what was once the largest indoor swimming pool in the country. The construction of the building was poured concrete which Flager used in many of his ventures and a new process at the time.

Flagler College .....

The Spanish influence is seen everywhere in town even in the wrought iron trim.

This poor under nourished girl was a model that was being photographed overlooking St. Augustine Harbor.

More Spanish influence ....

The oldest oak tree in the country and supposed to be between 500 and 600 years old.

Many walls around town were made of oyster shells ......

Yes ... we even stopped here. Our trolley driver claimed to be in his 80's and had visited this every day for over 40 years. I swear he didn't look a day over 45 so it must work!

Huen rested beside this character. He wasn't a very good conversationalist....

This 10 foot alligator is supposed to be killed by a 12 year old boy ......

This drugstore is one of the oldest buildings in town and is made with cypress boards and has never had a coat of paint.

Flagler had this church built in honor of his daughter who is laid to rest inside as well as her infant daughter and Flagler himself.

The restaurant inside the Lightener Museum which was originally a swimming pool.

We had lunch with Skip and Barb since Huen and Cricket had gone to the fort to meet his brother.

More buildings ......

After lunch Ricki & I decided to walk over to St. George Street which is a pedestrian mall many blocks long just crammed with all kind of shops.

Of course all kinds of characters are present. This one man band was interesting.

Ricki & I decided to call it a day and caught the trolley back to the winery and the long HOT walk back to the marina. We were wasted so we just enjoyed our A/C in the boat and retired early.

5/29/11

Up early and off to the winery about 9:30 to catch the trolley back to town.

Our objectives today included the Castillo de San Marcos Fort. Since this is a national monument
we were able to get in free with our National Parks Pass we purchased at Shiloh Cemetery.

Another guy thing .... at least this one was alive and a park ranger.

Entry into the fort .......

These were all park rangers who interacted with the crowd.

This ranger gave a very interest history lesson with humor.

A cute couple in the fort courtyard.

They actually fired a cannon across the river toward the ocean inlet. We were told they could shoot cannon balls over 3 miles which is amazing.

A photo from the fort of the St. Augustine lighthouse.

My bride ..........

The moat around the building was normally dry and is where their animals grazed and was only flooded when the fort was under siege.

Curious Cricket ........

This cute vehicle was in the parking lot and I want one!

After the fort tour we went across the street to the Pirate Museum.

I promise to be good .....

We were told that Memorial Weekend is the largest tourist traffic time of the year and we believe it since we had to wait over an hour for a trolley to take us back to the winery. They came by every 10 to 15 minutes but they were always full so we flagged down a different looking trolley that turned out to be on its way back from a wedding reception to get us back. He was headed back to the first stop and couldn't take us all the way back to the winery but he fixed us up with a van that the 4 of us shared with another couple for the rest of the ride. BIG TIP IN ORDER!

After a nap, Huen had everyone on Lucky One for a great spaghetti dinner.

St. Augustine, FL - 5/27/11

We left Palm Coast Marina at 9:20 this morning in hopes of beating the anticipated rain this afternoon. The 25 mile run to rivers Edge Marina on the Sebastian River was pretty easy. Lots of homes again and decks extending into the AICW along the way.

There were several narrow and shallow places. Huen found one and had to work his way off. Several places had temporary buoys in place and the GPS had you going a different direction so we had to stay alert.

After following the AICW for about 23 miles, we turned port to go 1.8 miles up the Sebastian River. This was a very narrow river and made several turns so we had to remember not to get too close to the inside on the turns.


We got to Rivers Edge Marina about 12:15 and settled in until next Tuesday. Downtown St. Augustine is only half mile away so tomorrow we will explore. The rain came mid afternoon but didn't last very long.

Dinner tonight was at the marina restaurant - Hurricane Patty's. We were joined by Huen's bother Buddy and his family. They drove down from Savannah and are going to spent a day or two in the area.

Today was Cricket's birthday so Barb picked up a cake and we all got together on Lucky One for drinks and cake.

Our position is N 29 53.135 W 81 19.341

Palm Coast, FL - 5/26/11

All 3 boats pulled out of their respective slips at 8:30 this morning for the 29 mile run to Palm Coast Marina. Halifax Marina was a very nice stop and we enjoyed our week there in spite of the mechanical issues that kept us in port.

Skip had borrowed a 50 amp splitter from the marina so he stopped to turn it in as well as all our keys to the security gates.

Lucky One & Quest idled out into the AICW to wait on Moor $tuff and had gone under the first bridge when Skip emerged from the channel leading into the marina. The second bridge which was very close to the first bridge, was the International Speedway Bridge and had these mosaic tile pictures on each pillar. Skip had caught up with us and we nominated him as the lead boat. The dark cloud that has plagued him since we got to Dayton Beach got him again and he ran aground just past the bridge and had to call Sea Tow to get him loose. The bill was nearly $1,500 for a few minutes of work. Thank God he had purchased unlimited towing and his personal part of the bill was only the premium he had paid earlier.

So Quest was followed by Lucky One and we continued on while Moor $tuff waited nearly 2 hours for the tow. We passed by Caribbean Jack's where we had been a couple times while at Halifax Marina.

Passed an interesting addition to an old Gibson houseboat ..... and arrived at Palm Harbor Marina about 12:30 p.m. Skip & Barb rolled in a couple hours later. After getting everything settled in and making a few purchases in the marina store by the first mate, we decided to stroll down the street for dinner.

This is the European Village that was originally designed as an upscale hotel but didn't make it. Now it has shops in each of the street level units and condos in the upper levels.

It is laid out in a triangle effect with a neat court yard in the center.

Skip making sure Barb does not see the Vera Bradley name on the window .....

We stopped in the neatest little Italian restaurant for dinner.

We chose to eat on the patio where a strolling violinist played. The meal here was one of the best so far on this adventure.

When the violinist finished, the matre De took over and entertained. We noticed that he wore his hat backwards and he just remarked that it felt better that way.

On our way back to the marina, Huen (the romantic) captured a couple of magnolia blossoms and gave them to Ricki and Cricket. Since he is short he couldn't reach a third one for Barb, so ......

We got her a palm branch instead!

Another good time with good people. Tomorrow we plan to go on north to St. Augustine where we will land for the holiday weekend. We have heard horror stories about being on the water on weekends and especially holidays so we will just stay a few days and explore the old city.

Our position is currently N 29 34.632 W 81 11.618