St. Augustine is notable as the oldest continually inhabited European-established settlement in the continental US. Spanish explored the area in 1513 and founded the town in 1564, beating the Pilgrims by several years. The best of St. Augustine today I believe is the Castillo de San Marcos which changed hands from the Spanish, British, French and Americans several times over the years.

Castillo de San Marcos from the boat on a now typical storm threatening day

Today a National Monument, San Marcos is the only 17th century fortification in the US and is unique for its construction using a semi-rare form of limestone called coquina. While broken limestone shells sound like a fragile thing to use for a fort, this material (quoting from the internet here) contains millions of microscopic air pockets making it compressible. When cannonballs were fired they burrowed into the wall and stuck there and a ranger said that the soldiers would dig out the balls and fire them back at the enemy. How demoralizing would that be!  

Entering by crossing the moat, we did a self-guided tour and then enjoyed a short but very informative the Ranger talk. 

The cannon there were quite unique and decorative, not your run of the mill cannon. Signage indicated some were made in Seville. 

We strolled the streets of St. Augustine and then went through Flagler College, a private college that used to be the Ponce de Leon Hotel built between 1885 and 1887 by Henry Flagler. Flagler was the railroad and hotel magnate of Florida and this was his flagship hotel. During World War II it was used as a Coast Guard Training Center and became a college in 1968. It is a beautiful facility with marble, carved oak and a tiffany window inside. 

Later in the afternoon Peter, the agent who sold Tom the catamaran, picked us up and took us to his boatyard where we looked at many lovely other "cats" but came out happy to have Double Life! Pete returned us to the marina via back streets through the "Lincoln District" which was a treat to be able to see a non-touristy and also historic part of town. 

The next stop for short sight-seeing was Titusville, better known as the home of the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral.  This would be a great place to anchor if a launch was going, but that was not to be. We did walk through a small park near the docks called Space View Park which is very well done with many markers commemorating all the astronauts and missions. Several notables have hand prints here too as this one of Neil Armstrong.

The afternoon of the 18th we reached Fort Pierce and the end of the journey so far. The boat will be taken out of the water here and Tom will be doing work that needs to be done in the next few months. It will also be safer during hurricane season out of the water. I headed back to Flagstaff and less heat and humidity than Florida has to offer in mid-summer!  In late November Double Life will make its way to the Keys and from there....ah, there are so many possibilities! 

Highlights of the past week:

Cumberland Island, GA

This island is a National Seashore, part of the NPS. It has been inhabited for hundreds of years from Native Timucuans to Spanish soldiers and missionaries, the British, enslaved African-Americans and finally the Carnegies. We stopped first at a place called Plum Orchard, a Georgian Revival mansion built by Lucy Carnegie for her son's wedding present in 1898.

Unfortunately the house was not open for tours but we did peak through the windows to see an entry hall with a gorgeous wood stairway and a couple rooms with very neat looking wallpaper. We asked some maintenance men working on the grounds about the house and they said that someone had actually hand painted over some of the original wallpaper pattern. The most surprising room we could see though was the swimming pool!

From here we went about  7 miles down river to Sea Camp on the southern part of the island where there is a Ranger Station. Near here was the first Carnegie house, Dungeness, which was built in 1884 by Thomas Carnegie and burned in 1959, so only ruins remain today. There is also a very nice museum in the old ice house that includes the entire history of the island. On the northern end of the island which we could not visit is the tiny First African Baptist Church established in 1883 (and rebuilt in 1930) for free African American workers who lived in The Settlement. Interestingly, John Kennedy, Jr. and Caroline Bessette were married in this church. 

About a half mile from Sea Camp, through a tunnel of live oak and Spanish moss and past campsites, is the Atlantic. We finally got to get our feet in the sand and bodies in the ocean. It was a really hot afternoon and the water actually felt a bit too warm, but the waves were good and the wind hitting us getting out was very refreshing! 

Wildlife and the ICW

Many dolphin, some right next to the boat, several flipping their tails and one that jumped totally out of the water.
   
About a dozen white pelicans on the beach near the bridge at Brunswick, GA. We did stop in Brunswick long enough to see a bit of town and purchase four pounds of shrimp right off the dock. Delicious!

Roseate Spoonbills, my first siting of them. They are unmistakable with pink showing up from some distance.

Then one hot afternoon after anchoring I decided to at least dangle my feet in the water and when I looked down at the step I saw a blue crab hanging on! Good sized but no, it was not our dinner!

We pass by shrimp boats often and they are a magnate for sea gulls of course. Sometimes out on the open water, the birds appear like a black cloud around the boats. On this one, if you can enlarge the photo, you'll see an egret was enjoying the ride too.

Jacksonville and friends

We rolled into Jacksonville on Friday and were met at the marina by friends Marilyn and Steve. Although the weather did not cooperate, raining all day Saturday and canceling thoughts of biking the beach and enjoying the ocean, we had a wonderful time visiting. A family dinner last night capped off the weekend and the rain finally did quit allowing us to walk the block from their house to the beach and see the full moon.  On this morning to St. Augustine and happy to say the sun is shining!

 

We have made it through Arthur, the first tropical storm of the season, which moved up the coast from Florida and hit the North Carolina coast Thursday night. Fortunately, we were far enough south by that time that we got winds of 20-25mph, 3-foot seas and only about ½ inch of rain. But that didn’t come without some excitement.

We anchored in a protected inlet Wednesday evening with the current running strong. About 3am Thursday we were awoken by “Drag Queen” our anchor alarm but after investigation things looked fine.  Up early, we took the dinghy to the shoreline and were happy to find 10 feet of water just 10 foot from the shore. Covering all bets, we put out a second anchor and then settled in for the day to wait out the storm.

here's what it looked like much of the day

There are always things to clean in down time, but this day also included reading, Scrabble and paint sticks. Several of the windows get much better ventilation with a paint stick propping them up, so I decided to start decorating some of those sticks.

By 4pm the main storm had passed us and by 5:00 the sun came out and it was a beautiful evening.

The days before Arthur’s arrival provided some good scenery.  For a brief stretch the ICW was close enough to the Atlantic to have great looking blue-green water instead of brown.

We often pass through areas with homes on one side and natural vegetation on the other. 

But while most homes are beautiful, there's just no accounting for some folks color preference.

We passed by many picturesque little towns, most all decked out for the 4^th of July.  Bridges have been plentiful and sometimes come two at a time.

I wish I had good pictures of the wildlife. The first alligator of the trip was sighted in South Carolina. We are seeing pelicans now and love watching them dive into the water for fish. Dolphin are also getting more common, several within 6-10 feet of the boat on occasion. 

And then there are two incredible people stories.

1) One morning after leaving Beaufort, N. C. a passing sailboat hailed us on the radio asking us if we were headed north or south on the ICW.   What?   He said his GPS wasn’t working and he didn’t know what direction he was going! He’d left the same city we had going south, but somehow did a 180 and was heading back north.

2) The evening of the storm, after it had cleared off and we were sitting on the back deck a jet skier pulled up. He had been out on his jet ski in the Atlantic that day during the storm and was trying to head back home but was almost out of gas. He was miles from his harbor and couldn’t call anyone for help because his phone was out of battery power. We called Tow Boat USA who came with 5 gallons of gas for him. 

And that brings us to July 4th in Charleston, South Carolina. We just finished watching fireworks all around the city while sitting on the boom. Must have been at least a dozen towns shooting them off, a couple fairly close. All these pictures are with my iPhone so they are not the best, but here's one of our Fourth celebration.