St Augustine, FL

December 2023
We met up with Lori and Paul (Island Time), Jack and Martha (Serenity), Julie and Brom (Winter Wheat) and Tangie and Darryl (Brigadoon) to go to Sarbez’s for grilled cheese sandwiches and arcade games. The next day we went to the Christmas parade with Tangie and Darryl. They are from Richmond, Va and keep their boat at Gloucester Yacht Haven, which is where we met them back in May. It was cool to catch up with them in Florida! That night we met Island Time and Serenity again for dinner at Blackfly. Sarbez and Blackfly are both across the Bridge of Lions and it was nice to experience a different part of St Augustine.
After they all they all departed to go south Dean and Sharon on Blue Whale arrived their boat Blue Whale. We met on the dock for cocktails and apps and chatted about what’s been going on since we last saw them, which was in George Town, Bahamas. Another night we went together to Chatsworth Public House for cocktails. Afterwards Kevin and I went to Pizza Time for a slice of NY pizza. It was good but overpriced. Cash only and very Italian operated, we speculated the Mafia got a cut!
We met Dean and Sharon again at Forgotten Tonic, which we thought had a happy hour but did not. We had one drink and went back to Chatworths.
On another night Kevin and I had dinner at Prohibition Kitchen. It was a cool place with a long bar of every type of spirit and tap beer you could want, the menu was mostly burgers and excellent. Afterward we went to the Chatsworth again, definitely Kevin’s favorite place. It has a cool vibe with couches and chairs. Kevin met Mo in the street, he fabricated some door knob latches for us and was driving down from Jacksonville for parts for his transmission so dropped them off.
One day when we were biking around town we stopped at a cigar place in historic district where Kevin read they had good sangria and I was not disappointed! We also went to a cruisers happy hour at Dog Rose Brewery. About a dozen people showed up. People were nice though mostly locals, the beer was marginal.

The kids came for Christmas and it was wonderful to see them!! We rented a house about a mile from downtown historic district. We walked around downtown on the 24th and got lunch as a Cuban deli. We celebrated Christmas at the house and played spicy Uno in the evening. On the 26th we toured the Fountain of Youth Archeological Park. This is where Ponce de Leon first established a colony in 1513 and it was rich with history about the area, the founding of St. Augustine, and the native Timucua Indians. We saw rifle and cannon demonstrations along with visiting a planetarium and a cool Discovery Globe that is 30 feet high. It was built in the 1950’s to show people the view of earth from space and was very innovative technology especially in 1950. That night after dinner we had a drink at the Chatsworth. We didn’t do as much as I had hoped as Kevin had to keep going back to the boat to charge batteries, and that consumed several hours Tuesday and Thursday. On Friday Sydney and Evan left for California and Christian and I toured the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, which is the oldest masonry fort in the continental US. It was built by the Spaniards beginning in 1672. It is well intact and provided a lot of history about the balance of power between Spain, France, Britain and the US over the control of Florida. We had lunch at DJ’s Clam Shack, walked around historic district and stopped for a beer at Ancient City Brewery to get out of the rain. We had been walking around in the rain all day and were very wet!
After Christmas Kevin and I were sitting in the cockpit and he heard a boat named Azure hailing the bridge and marina, he thought it sounded like Warren, who we met in the Exuma’s. He then hailed them and sure enough that’s who it was! They came by later and we had cocktails on the boat then went to Carmelo’s for dinner.
We enjoyed New Year Eve’s in the comfort of our cockpit, watching multiple firework displays. St Augustine became very busy after Christmas and I was glad to not be out in the crowed streets!

We left St. Augustine on January 1st - Happy New Year! The first 2 days we motored in the ICW. The first day was long but the weather was cooperative. The second day was very cold - in the 40’s - within 2 hours my feat were numb. We left at 6:30 a.m. and went under 4 bridges successfully. By 9:30 a.m. the tide had risen and we had to anchor until it went back down to go under the next bridge. It was a welcome break, Kevin brought out the space heater to warm up the salon and we had coffee with toast and jelly. I was able to complete a full workout before lunch. We left after lunch at 1:30 and had plenty of space under the next 2 bridges. That evening we anchored in Fernandina. The 3rd morning was just as cold and we were more prepared this time with warm layers. We left at 7:30 and went offshore. Arriving in Brunswick, GA the afternoon of January 3rd.Leer más