Jacksonville to St. Augustine and Beyond. 12/5-12/9

Leaving Jacksonville. December 5

A HUGE boat in dry dock, five stories tall and around 200 feet long

We had expected heavy fog again today to roll in about 7AM but it didn't materialize so we were able to leave by 8:20 and made the trip to St. Augustine by mid afternoon. Here we have Colleen's least favorite mooring field - crazy currents, unpredictable winds, short, hard to manage line on the mooring buoy. Again the field didn't disappoint. We managed to slip past the buoy after snagging it with the boat hook. Colleen was hanging desperately onto the boat pole trying to bring the rope up to the boat deck as the boat slipped steadily away from the buoy. At this point her headphones began rolling off her head. Calling, "Back up!" and several other unprintable statements, she let go of the hook and caught the headphones at the last possible instant. As Wayne backed away, we could see the now bent boat pole floating still attached to the mooring ball rope on the surface of the water. Wayne, smart captain and even smarter husband that he is said, "Oh well, I didn't like that flimsy boat pole anyway" and handed Colleen our second boat hook. This time we managed to get attached with minimal drama.
Lessons learned - we have to approach the buoy heading into the current every time (we had been assigned to a buoy that we knew had shallow water nearby so we took an approach from the deeper end- WRONG) and we need to develop hand signals to use at mooring buoys rather than the headphones (or invest in much more expensive headphone sets that will stay put on our heads even when our heads are tipped downward). The headphones are a valuable tool on the boat and make it possible for us to communicate with each other when one of us is out of sight of the other during docking and undocking.

Cool Change on her mooring buoy right outside Castillo de San Marcos. We were "treated" to regular cannon firings over the course of our two days here. We soon learned to cover our ears every time we heard the officer on the shore holler "Fire!"

The welcoming entrance to the St. Augustine Municipal Marina

Sights of St. Augustine
The first order of business was to replace the lost boat hook so we trekked the one mile+ to the Marine Supply and Oil Company. Wayne loves to browse in this place - it has more marine supplies than anyplace he's ever been. You can outfit any yacht or shrimp boat from their inventory. From there we walked to Theo's, a small restaurant with high recommendations from a local commercial fisherman, and enjoyed shrimp for lunch. They claim to be famous for their cinnamon roles but we got there too late to confirm that as the last big fat roll went to another table.

For the next two days we enjoyed the city and its annual Christmas parade, British Encampment and Grande Illumination.

Excellent breakfast spot on Saturday morning - Mary's Harbor View Café. The locals tell us that you'd better be there by 8:15 AM or you will face a long wait.

St. Augustine was established in 1565 and is the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement
and port in the United States. It's an excellent walking city with lots of interesting places to see.

The Pirate ship

Flagler College, built by Henry Flagler as a fancy hotel as he promoted the railroad in Florida

A front pillar at Flagler College

St. Augustine Christmas Parade

Large man and tiny Jeep

Notice the words on the front tag

Belly dancers at the parade

That's a snake wrapped around the guy and an alligator in the woman's arms

Every year the city commemorates the twenty year occupation of St. Augustine from 1763 to 1784 by the British. Re-enactors from all over the US collect on a large field just outside the old city and set up an authentic British camp over the first weekend in December. They are very true to the times they represent, dressing in authentic clothing, showing life in the field and using and selling items from the eighteenth century. We watched field demonstrations, changing of the guards and musket and cannon firing and enjoyed talking to the participants and browsing among the tents of authentic period goods for purchase.

Enjoying camp life

Most of the re-enactors stay in eighteenth century accommodations over the weekend,
living in tents and sleeping on cots, rain or shine.

This lady was wearing my favorite outfit. I couldn't get close enough to let you see just how utterly elegant she is.

The participants were serious about dressing authentically. When I referred to the things they wore as "costumes"
I was corrected and told they were wearing "clothing."

Even the baby's clothes were from the proper period.
I didn't have the nerve to ask if he was wearing cloth diapers or Pampers.
Like the babies of any time period, fingers are one of his favorite snacks.

Our vote for the best-dressed Native American in the bunch

These soldiers marched onto the field in formation and then shot off their muskets and cannon at their officers' command.
Pretty impressive, especially when we realized they were all shooting their
muskets toward their RVs in the background. Notice that Wayne captured the cannon just as it fired..

On Saturday evening we went back into town to watch the Grande Illumination and the Nightwatch Parade. All the members of the encampment, around two hundred people, marched through the old city. Members of the public were encouraged to join them carrying candles and they worked their way back to the Plaza de la Constitution where there were speeches, more musket firings and Christmas caroling.

The night view of the city from our boat. All the buildings and trees are lit up as part of the Grande Illumination

Good-bye to St. Augustine

Our water tanks are full and we've had our holding tanks pumped out. However, we are beginning to get short on clean clothes and groceries so it's time to push on and try to make it to Merritt Island where we've arranged to stay at Harbortown Marina for a month. Sunday morning we awoke to our most recent nemesis - fog! It hung around and hung around and finally cleared enough by about 10:30 that we could head out. We made it to an anchorage near Daytona and, with an early start and some hustling and ten hours at the helm, reached Merritt Island on Monday, December 9th. It was a good day to get here since it is Colleen's friend, Marla's, birthday. We enjoyed a meal out with her and other friends, Roger and Marcy. We'll deal with the piles of laundry tomorrow.

Whether we anchor out or take a mooring ball, we have to carry the water we use on the boat.
Wayne is the water boy, replenishing our supply with five gallon jugs that each weigh thirty five pounds.
He's worked out a nifty system for using gravity to siphon the water from the top steps at the back of the
boat into our water tanks near the bottom step. He hauled seven jugs in two trips while