Stéphane and I have been told if there’s one place in Florida worth seeing it’s St. Augustine. And after spending a week in Jacksonville, a place definitely not worth seeing (but thank you very much for the free dock), we felt we owed it to ourselves and to Florida to explore one of its more authentic, historic towns.
We arrived in St. Augustine just in time for “Nights of Lights”. All of the buildings, the bridge, trolleys, pirate ships, trees – anything and everything in St. Augustine is covered in lights. If you stand still for too long, you might end up wrapped in bulbs, just saying’ – move along!
We arrive on a Saturday afternoon, drop anchor and hang out on board for the rest of the day / night. We like to make sure the anchor has set properly and that we don’t drag before we leave Free Range for an extended period of time. Sunday we dinghy ashore and explore the town. Old town St. Augustine feels Cumberland Island-esque with live oaks draped in Spanish moss; there are balconies overlooking warped cobblestone alleys, rusty wrought iron gates choked with vines; crumbling coquina walls. This place is old and parts of it still look and feel old.
After a few hours of walking around and exploring, we walk past a free winery tour/tasting. Free wine, you say? Yes please.
More exploring…
The next day we gave Free Range some loving – I scrubbed her decks and Stéphane made some noises (drilling, banging, scraping, etc.) in preparation for our new auto pilot (“Super Mark”). We took the dinghy for a ride to check out the surrounding area and got some great beta on a PERFECT spot to provision for the Bahamas: the local town dock is free for four hours and a Publix grocery store is three short blocks away. This is the most perfect scenario we’ve seen yet for provisioning, so we are going to take full advantage before we leave.
Next day, we spend a rainy day at the marina lounge doing laundry and downloading movies and music. I got a nice run in and a hot “land shower”. Another great day in St. Augustine.
Looks like St. Augustine was a good day – and a bargain on the wine – and the weather looked good! Yay!
Coquina soup is great! Used to find them on Florida beaches.
At the rate you are going I figure your trip around the world will take 84-1/3 years. Tom