St. Augustine, Florida

Here is Aunt Aggie (in the middle) seen from the Bridge of Lions.

Today is sunny and cold and windy.  We left Palm Coast Marina around 9:30 am after visiting with the guys in the office and our friends, Jessie and Linda.  They are going home for Easter, but we hope to meet them again along the way north.  Jessie took off our lines.  We drove the boat from below due to the cold.  There were white caps, but nothing to worry about, according to George.  We did notice that no one else was out on the water.  "Good news," says George.  "There's no traffic.  No boats will
be waking us."
     "Bad news," says Martha.  "Everyone else knows it's too windy to boat today."

There was no excitement on the trip except around red channel marker # 82. (So yes, George was right.)  There was a warning on the chart that shoaling had occurred in the channel.  There were reports from boaters of running aground even in the channel.  So stay toward the red.  We were vigilant as we rounded the curve and hugged the red marker.  We passed the danger spot, but then we came upon two sailboats hard aground.  They were in the channel and stopped.  Could we pass them?  George called one of them, and the sailor asked us to wait and let him move first.  He had been aground and just got freed.  We slowed way down and puttered behind him, and all was well.  The other boat looked uninhabited, but a sailor came out and glared at us as we passed.  We saw Tow Boat US coming up with its lights flashing.  The tow went to the second boat.  We were out of the way by this point.  Later at St. Augustine, just one half hour after we had arrived, Tow Boat US pulled in that sail boat.

Tow Boat US is the red boat in front.

St. Augustine Municipal Marina is a bustling place right in town.  There are trolleys and pirate cruises and lots of tourists walking on our dock.  We walked across the Bridge of Lions to Spencer's grocery and bought fresh meat, cheese, fruit and vegetables.  On the way home we had to wait for a bridge opening.  Here is the Spanish galleon at the end of our dock.  

Lots of folks are walking down to see this ship.

This is a whaling ship near us.

After nap we are going to walk around the historic section and take a tour.  We hope to see Vicki and Mark Hill from Blue Willow.  We saw their boat earlier.  There is a looper boat, another Mainship Trawler, in the slip beside us too.  So lots of social possibilities for us if we can just get moving again.  

We considered staying another day here for the blessing of the fleet tomorrow.  However, we are trying to reach Savannah by April 3, and we like our short travel days.  It's easy to plan on the tide and current if we just go four hours.  So we will be taking off blessing-less.  We'll have to do our own blessing this evening; we have fresh limes.