St Augustine

We had a late morning and waited for “Slow Flight” to catch up to us. We started off at around 10  am for a short run into St. Augustine. Before getting into our mooring at the municipal marina you have to wait for the “Bridge of Lions” bridge to open up every 1/2 hr. The area here is very busy with boats going in a out of the inlet to the ocean, other boats circling around waiting for the bridge to open plus all sorts of  local traffic. Anyways after the bridge opened we were able to find our mooring and were relieved to see that they were spaced out properly and not as tight as in Beaufort. For $20.00 a day there are showers, laundry, water taxi and dinghy dock available.

St. Augustine is the oldest city in the states, having been established 450 years ago! There are a lot of unique old buildings and roads as you see by some of the pictures. The strange part of this, is all the glitz and tackiness intertwined among old parts. Sort of reminded us of Niagara Falls with the Ripley’s believe it or not, mini golf, fountain of youth, scooter rentals etc. Anyways when in Rome…..so we jumped on a “Red Bus” tour (one of many) and got a great tour of mostly the old part of the city. This ticket allows us to use it for the next 3 days, getting off/on on at various sites.

Shown is a palm tree that has grown up through another tree, both were alive and doing well. Speaking of tree, the large one here is called “The Old Senator” which is a 600 year old oak tree!

We finished off our first day at a nice Italian restaurant.

The next day myself and Steve spend a good part of the day going through a really good used marine consignment store, I picked up a few small things including parts to rebuild the AC water pump.  In the afternoon we went to the local legion for lunch.

Our last day here I worked on the water pump but there were more problems with it. I took the whole water pump to the consignment store. It looks like the bearings in the motor are shot and you cannot get at them as they are sealed in epoxy! The store reimbursed me for the parts I bought and I was able to buy a complete rebuilt unit from them. I spent another couple hours putting it back together, this got the water flowing again but there is no blower fan working!!! I have not had this AC/heater on for about 6 years and I guess it shows :( I have no idea how to get at the fan as it is jammed into a cupboard. Maybe I’ll just rip the whole thing out and use it for more storage…….

In the afternoon Heather and I went for lunch and walked around the town. In the evening we got together with some IP (Island Packet) owners, I think they are sort of a cult but they let us join in, maybe they are trying to convert us :) We will leave early tomorrow and try to make Daytona Beach.