2014 - April - From Jacksonville to St. Augustine

We left Jacksonville Landings on 4/5 about 3pm  with Laurel on board.  A few hours later, we anchored by Blunt Island for happy hour, dinner & dominoes. Beautiful night. 

Winnie & her 'kids' underway

 We pulled anchor at 9am, arrived in St. Augustine & tied up to a mooring ball about 3pm. Another beautiful day. 

The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States 

 

Beautiful Flagler College in the background

This is a very boater-friendly town. With a mooring ball,  a free water taxi that runs every 2 hours from 10 - 6pm; free pump-out & water. Laurel's friend, Kathy, drove down to pick her up. Since we thought we'd be in town later than 6pm, we decided to take the dinghy ashore. Our brand new battery was deader' than a doornail!

We quickly called for the water taxi - a very nice pontoon boat. We met Kathy at the A1A restaurant for dinner & managed to get on the last taxi run of the day. 

Wayne went on the boater's net asking for a ride to Napa Auto store. A very kind boater drove him & he easily exchanged the dead with a new battery. 

There was intermittent rain the next few days which kept us on board.  On Thursday, we attended the Cruiser's Net group happy hour at Mehan's Irish Pub - we took Scupper & Jack - a mistake...Jack is still learning social skills - I wish he'd hurry up already!

Laurel returned on Saturday but left on Palm Sunday before the 'Blessing of the Fleet'. She missed all the fun. This is an event I didn't know about & was excited to be a part of.  The local newspaper  created a slide show of the event. If interested, I think you'll have to copy & paste the link below. 

http://staugustine.com/slideshow/2014-04-14/slideshow-blessing-fleet#slide-10   

The boats had to line up in front of the bridge. Unfortunately, it was windy & there was a strong outgoing current which made maneuvering, for all boats, difficult.  Amazingly, I didn't hear of one crash.

 

The lead boat
 

Commercial boats went first. 

 The local Bishop walked from his church along with other dignitaries dressed in full regalia. It was an amazing site. 

 

BLUE MAX receiving the blessing - the Bishop yelled out to us "beautiful boat".

 

These guys yelled to us too.  Sure made us feel good.

It was a blessed day. 

 

St. Augustine Lighthouse

We left St. Augustine on 4/14 after filling the water tanks & getting fuel for the dinghy. 
The adventure continues southward.