Dcember 1, 2010 - December 4, 2010 St. Augustine, FL to just north of Daytona Beach and south of Marineland

We had a great time on our visit to St. Augustine.  We walked all over the city and enjoyed returning to some of our favorite places there - the living history tour of some old houses and the Spanish bakery, to name a few.  On Thursday the 2^nd, our friend Nick joined us for the day and we had lunch together and wandered around the streets for the afternoon.  Thanks, Nick.  We both enjoyed seeing you so much! 

The weather was pretty brisk, with some temps that were unusually low in this state (low forties at night, fifies and sixties during the days).  We were taking the water taxi provided by the marina in to the dock so that made our trip in from the buoy field much easier than it would have been had we been using our dinghy but we still had to deal with lots of chilly wind.  It turned out to be a good thing we did not try to use our dinghy as the engine that has run beautifully for the many years we've owned it, decided not to carburate properly and was flooding.  Wayne took the carburator apart and cleaned it as best he could with acetone.  It ran great for ten minutes.

On Saturday morning we untied ourselves from the buoy and made a short fourteen mile trip just past Marineland to dock for the rest of the day and for Saturday night at the home of Pidge and John, the sister and brother-in-law of our good friend, Dottie.  Along the way we really began to feel that we had arrived in the Florida of some of our best memories on the water.  We saw dolphins and palm trees and were so close to the ocean that we could see the dunes.  The air was cool but the sky was that lovely light blue that is so much a part of Florida.

Pidge had been forewarned that we would enjoy a trip to Publix and one of the first things she said after we got the boat tied up was, "We can walk to Publix if you want."  You betcha.  Wayne and I walked to Publix with Pidge and John after lunch and, of course, we picked up a key lime pie.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but the two of us are suckers for Publix' key lime pies and carrot cakes.  Wayne was able to get proper carburator cleaner from John's hardware store, redid the job and we'll test the dinghy engine at our next stop.  We enjoyed supper with Pidge and John and some friends of theirs and are looking forward to leaving in the morning and making our way down to around Titusville.  We’ll need to change the bedsheets and wash clothes soon.  No hurry, though.

Our family has always enjoyed getting our picture taken in front of this lovely little statue of Queen Isabella.  Unfortunately, it's fenced off now.

Cool Change was pretty much the last boat in this field of boats in St. Augustine's harbor.

Nick and us

Look close.  That ripple in the water is a camera shy dolphin.

Cool Change at a comfortable anchorage for the night at Pidge and John's.