Merry Christmas

After spending our week at the marina on Sunday we moved to a mooring at the St Augustine Municipal Marina. So for this week we are tethered to the bottom via a big floating ball. The Matanzas River that flows through here has a wicked current. The tide variations are about 5’ so every 6 hours 5’ of water goes in and out of here. The current speed approaches 3 kts at max flow. So every 6 hours we change direction and it has been really interesting because the wind has been out of the south so when the tide is coming in and we’re facing north, the wind keeps us on top of the mooring ball.

St Augustine City Marina with cruisers dinghying in (like us) from a mooring.

Linda’s son, Seth, flew in for the week on Sunday night that become Monday morning. The 9 pm arrival became 3 am so we didn’t get back to the boat until after 5 am on Monday. So at just before dawn we dinghied out to the boat in a moderate rain and then went to sleep.

One of the exciting things about our adventure is that it is always filled with surprises. On Sunday after we moved the boat to the mooring we had to walk back to the marina to get the rental car. But once we got that downtown and went to dinghy back the engine wouldn’t start. Our 15hr Yamaha engine that is supposed to be bulletproof was dead. Since it gave us problems on the way in I took the gas can out of the dinghy and added a gallon of high test gas. The gas/oil mix in the can came from the engine’s previous owner and I suspected it might be old. So eventually I was able to get the engine started and we motored back out to our boat. Once there we lifted the Yamaha engine off the dinghy nd replaced it with our spare Mercury 9.9 engine that we bought with our dinghy. Of course it was my bad for never running the engines before (just not enough time) other than to try them out.

We have been using the merc ever since.I plan to get a can of gumout and clean the carb on the Yamaha and suspect that will then work again.

We have been enjoying St Augustine a very culturally diverse city. Founded by the Spanish explorers in 1565 the old city has narrow walled streets with shops and restaurants tucked in everywhere. Then of course there is the old fort built to repel pirates and English. For the holidays pretty much everything is the City is decorated in lights and at night it is absolutely gorgeous. The Spanish colonial style buildings with palm trees decorated with lights provide an intimate attractive holiday appeal. 

There are nice little restaurants and bars all over the City. Monday afternoon we sat at the Mi Casa Café and listened to a very good entertainer sing and play great classical American roots music. It was a mix of blues, country and bluegrass. After that we found a nice vegetarian restaurant for one of the best meals we’ve had in a while. Even the cashew nut ice cream was incredible and nothing had animal products in it.

Weather this week has been less than spectacular but at least it is warm! 

Merry Christmas to all and hope you continue to follow our updates. There are more pictures to post and more information.

But for tonight have a beautiful silent night.