St. Augustine

Wednesday, 27 Nov, started with our often times "2 hour coffee" (coffee, checking email/Facebook, surfing the net, watching the news (for weather), planning our next leg, etc). We were going to St. Augustine that was only three hours south of us. Sharon spent a good portion of the morning purging the boat of cardboard. Apparently bugs love cardboard and Sharon (and me) doesn't like bugs. We don't have any bugs but are getting closer to a warmer climate (Yes!).

We were headed for St. Augustine Municipal Marina which is known to have some really rough and funky current. A new moon didn't help either. I wanted to get there as close to slack tide as possible. For those who don't know what 'slack tide' is, it's the relatively still water at the turn of the low and high tide. We left Jacksonville around 1130 and for once, had the current in our favor! BUT, for once, I didn't want the current in our favor and wanted to arrive around 1500 (3pm). We even spent some of the time at idle speed and were still doing around eight knots! That's some serious current.

We passed beautiful home after beautiful home. We had a few douche bags pass us at full speed, oblivious of their wake but overall, it was a nice ride. We arrived at the Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine around 1445. This bridge has a 23 foot closed clearance and we had to idle until for the 1500 opening. Our marina was immediately after the bridge. We radioed ahead and were told we had to wait about 10 minutes for other boats to dock. There were three ahead of us. That was fine with me because slack tide was at 4 and the longer we waited, the better!

The marina staff are used to the current challenge and put us in a slip so we were docking into the current (which is what you want). Once docked, we checked out St. Augustine for a couple of hours then went to Anne O'Malley's for a cruisers Thanksgiving Eve happy hour. We ran into a couple of boaters we had met previously and met some new people. 

Castillo de San Marcos

Bridge of Lions. Drawbridge we had to clear.

We then went to Prohibition Kitchen (very popular), walked past the line and found two bar stools! Drink, food and service was excellent!

Prohibition Kitchen

Thanksgiving day was a huge potluck dinner at the marina put on by Cruisers Net. Sharon baked a pumpkin pie and made a cheese ball. There were so many deserts that her's was three deep. Plenty of pumpkin pie for us to take back to the boat!!! Several local businesses and Cruisers Net contributed turkey, ham, pork, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, etc. and many boaters brought a side dish. There was a TON of food! Although we miss family and friends, it was great eating dinner outside in shorts and T-shirts! (Sharon wore a dress). Earlier in the day we ran into Tom, Andy Polk's uncle (for those that know him) and a couple, Jo and Frank, we met at a Herrington Harbour breakfast. It's a small and great world!

We have so much to be thankful for! and don't know where we'll be tomorrow. I do know we want to be in a slip around Daytona Sun/Mon to wait out unfavorable (for us) conditions.