July 24- August 1, 2008

The best laid plans are made to be changed and we are fortunate that we both believe that. We had planned to travel from Daytona Beach, FL as far north as St. Mary/Cumberland Island, GA. But things change…

First stop ~ Palm Coast. We docked at the marina there and walked down the road for dinner to the European Village. Great pizza at a place called Mezzaluna. Kinda strange place overall.

On our way to St. Augustine, we discovered we had a stow-away and named him Pedro. He seemed rather unconcerned with us - I sat right next to him and Jamey squeezed fresh water over him - which he drank. We didn’t see him again after that first day in St. Augustine so we can only assume he jumped ship and headed for parts unknown.

So here’s where the fun starts. The transmission had started leaking and the fluid was actually getting so hot it was boiling. Luckily, Captain Hubby is very handy and he spent the first day in St. Augustine at the Conch House Marine & Resort rebuilding something or another on it. After a $20 taxi ride to Lowe’s for a $19 part, the transmission was functional and hopefully fixed for good.

I wisely retreated with a cold drink to the pool in order to stay out of the way (not to mention the heat). Captain Hubby joined me there after for a well-deserved libation & dip.

The Conch House is a St. Augustine institution. Lots of outdoor dining space ~ the best being these thatched perches. There are also tons of these great wood carvings all over on the pilings.

The originala plan was to leave St. Augustine in the morning and head out the inlet, sailing north in the Atlantic to Mayport where we’d spend the night. However, after a high-level management meeting in the pool that morning, it was decided that traveling in the Atlantic and going further north would be folly given the unknown state of the transmission.

It was also decided that since there was no pool (or anything else , for that matter) in Mayport, that an afternoon spent there would be hot and rather unbearable. Why leave the comfort of the Concho House?

Instead, we tested the transmission with an hour motor-sail north to Cap’s on the Water. We anchored off the river-front eatery and Captain Hubby executed an impressive row in to dock in our trusty dinghy; Hola. After an over-priced, but yummy lunch of steamed shrimp & cocktails, we motor sailed back to the Conch House and felt that the transmission repair had been a success, however we decided to stick by our plan of staying at the Conch House and rent a car for a couple days to visit Cumberland Island & Fernandinda.

This perch over-lookin the pool became our headquarters. Shade and a breeze and just steps to the pool… Spent one entire day doing nothing more ambitious than defending our perch, traveling between it, the pool and the boat for cocktails & snacks. I read nearly an entire book that day. Bliss.

Most embarrassing moment for Moi ~ To get from the pool to the boat at the Conch House, one must walk what seems like a quarter of a mile (probably more like 3/16ths), down a long dock, past diners at the outdoor restaurant deck, pedestrians strolling the dock, a tiki-like bar with outdoor tables, a water sports rental hut with usually several people milling around, a boat broker, the marina office, the boat house bathrooms and then on to the floating dock past other boaters. One day, I realized when I stopped in the boathouse bathroom that I had done this entire walk - in the middle of the afternoon when it was rather busy all around - with a large piece of lime pulp stuck to the end of my nose. I am glad I can laugh at myself or I’d have been mortified.

The Conch House tiki bar…

The Conch House kitty…..

A little pool-side snack….

Dinner at Gypsy Cab Company (walking distance from Conch House), another St. Augustine favorite.

The next day we took the dinghy for a ride to a nearby island and enjoyed a walk around.

Sunday afternoon at the Conch House is Reggae Party day. There is a huge tented floating dock where a band sets up and people seem to come from near and far every Sunday for this event (we’ve sen it once before when visiting by boat with friends). It is kinda of sad, really. The crowd is primarily scantily clad women - the young ones flaunting what they’ve got, the older ones doing their best to flaunt what they’ve paid for. Then you’ve got the guys….the young ones puffing up, trying to catch the eyes of the young ladies, and well, the old ones doing the same, only more desperately so. It is a meat market of bathing suits, booze and way-too loud music. Maybe I sound like an old fuddy-duddy. Maybe I am. But we wandered down to the tent where the music was to check it out and I swear I lost some of my hearing right then and there. Immediately some tipsy high schooler (or maybe she just looked that age to my old fuddy duddy self) dropped her beer bottle, which smashed in all directions. After a walk down the dock and a look at the scene I was ready to retreat to the relative peace of Adios for a cold one. I should have taken a photo later as this entire dock was FULL of people.
Walked in to town over the seriously under construction Bridge of Lions for dinner at the Milltop, overlooking the fort. Food nothing to write home about, but location, location, location. It overlooks the fort and the bay. From there we found a bar on the veranda of a bay-front inn where we put our feet up and enjoyed watching the world go by while we listened to a ghost tour operator tell the story of the woman who owned that particular in during prohibition.

Visiting Cumberland Island ~ Wild horses, a wide, empty beach, Spanish-moss draped hammock of oaks, ruins of a fabulous mansion and other buildings. Captain found a shard of pottery or tile embedded in the dirt road we walked under the hammock. It was incredibly hot and an impressive storm brewed up all around us just as we boarded the ferry to St. Mary’s, but we never got any of the rain. Would love to come back when it is cooler and rent biycles.

Back at the Conch House ~ just another daily Florida storm…

Nice dinner outside in the courtyard garden at Harry’s on the bay front. Relaxing music from a lone guitar player who would have been better off just playing, as his vocal stylings were…wierd

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Lunch in Fernandina Beach ~ Lots of the usual tourist gift shops. However we stumbled onto a great antique/junk shop called “Trailer Park Collectibles” where I found a fabulous stained glass/glass-bead fish that so belonged on our back porch.

Nice lunch at a marina-front place; yummy quiche & pasta salad. Would have liked to wander the back streets more, but a dark storm was brewing as we left the eatery. A black man outside the restaurant was hollering and grabbing his head at every flash of lightening. I wondered what in his life caused him to react in such a way.

Before we fled to drive back in a horrible storm (I was terrified), we stopped briefly in this neat artists’ group place. There was an artist whose work I really liked ~ Casey Matthews ~ and hope to go back one day to purchase some of her work.

Spent the next morning sailing in the Atlantic before heading back in to beat the afternoon storm.

We moved from the Conch House to the Municiple Marina in downtown St. Augustine and pulled up to dock just as a black storm was surrounding us. Amazingly, our luck held and we were able to get situated before it rained and even then, it rained lightly enough we could sit in the cockpit, enjoying a cocktail while we watched the bridge workers lift (with a crane) and move into place a large section of the bridge. They have actually built an entirely new bridge (that large metal contraption is where it now opens) and torn down all but the turrets of the historic Bridge Of Lions. They are now rebuilding the entire bridge and re-habing the turrets. It is slated to be done in 2015.

Once the rain stopped, we walked to Casa Monica, a historic, lovely hotel downtown where I had reserved one night. Ahhhhhh….a shower that wasn’t in a marina bath house. Air conditioning, plush bedding & sumptuous pillows. Divine!
St. Augustine is always beautiful to me. So much history at every turn. Lightner Museum, across from Casa Monica.

Part of Flagler College across from Casa Monica.

Wandering from Casa Monica down St. George Street, we toyed with where to dine. Started with a lovely seared tuna appetizer and white Sangria & wine at an upstairs spot called Sangria’s, catty corner to the famous Columbia Restaurant. It overlooked a beautiful park.

From there we went to check out the menu of a French restaurant down the street only to find that it had been replaced by one called Collage. The menu looked inviting and the interior even more so. The food - linguinie with clams for me and curry lamb shank for Captain Hubby - was very nice.

Pointed it south to head home..

ISB Bridge near home and the mosaics beneath it.

A few random observations…

• When on a sailboat, if you’re like me, you spend a lot of time trying to avoid direct sun. I burn at the slightest provocation and spend all my sunny vacations slathered in a sticky cocoon of SPF30.

• It is a universal truth when traveling on a sailboat everything you want or need at any given moment is either inside, under or behind something else - often more than one something else. You’re also in a constant state of washing up, tidying up & putting away in an effort to maintain order. It isn’t actually a chore; you sort of do it unconsciously.

• I believe that some days we forget how absolutely beautiful our surroundings can be. Sometimes I think it is because of the distractions around us…TVs, engines, music, air traffic, cell phones, etc. On the river or ocean, when the engine was cut and the sails were up, I noticed how bright the boat hulls were, the clouds were art, the birds were music…it was all beautiful, the sights, the sounds and the breeze.