April 5 Rockhouse Creek New Smyrna to St Augustine 54 7 Miles

9:45 to 7:45 -- a long day, longer than planned. Our plan had been to go to the anchorage by Fort Matanzas on the Matanzas River, only 42.3 miles to break todays trip into two legs. The various sources we use: Skipper Bob, Doyle and Active Captain, have different ideas about how best to enter this anchorage. They all involve turning east into the Matanzas from the ICW but some are crowd sourced and some say to make the turn just south of green buoy 81A while others said to make the turn north of that buoy, and there is a discussion that the sands shift. We turned in just south and went from 12 feet of water to hitting the sandy bottom within 20 feet. Whump! Naturally, in such chancy circumstances we were going slow, as slow as the current in the ICW would allow. But if we had not been making some speed the current would have pushed us backward when we turned. We were able to back off in perhaps 15 seconds. But now we knew that we did not know how to get in there, though we saw another boat anchored within. So this episode took the bloom off the Matanzas anchorage rose and we motored the remaining miles 12.4 miles that we had planned to do the next day, to the Municipal Marinas mooring field in St. Augustine.

The waters were as vacant during this Easter Sunday passage as they had been crowded with people and boats the day before. This may have had something to do with the weather. It did not rain, but all day the meteorologists predicted rain and the skies looked like they were planning to let loose. It was reasonably warm until late afternoon. In the morning the winds were quite strong, gusting to 20 knots, so we flew the small jib while motoring and made more than seven knots. Later we made such speed when favored by the tide but only 4.8 knots when it flowed against us. Someones idea of an unusual waterside home:

It was a bit foggy, misty lets say,  toward the end, diminishing visibility of "the next buoy" which is our holy grail. This reminded me of how dependent I am on the most primitive navigation device we have: the human eye. But the mild fog in the mooring field is what permitted me to capture the loom of the Saint Augustine Lighthouse (one white flash every 30 seconds) at dusk.

We were visited buy a pack of four Porpoises, which swam against our boat on its mooring, probably seeking to eat seaweed growing on our hull, which reminds me she needs a cleaning.  Ilene believes they sensed our cats and wanted to make friends.

We plan to use our dink to run errands and for sightseeing tomorrow, and the launch, which only runs only once per two hours from 10 a.m to 6 p.m., on Tuesday and Wednesday, when the dink will be repaired. Weather permitting, we will sail, outside, to Cumberland Island by the St. Marys River on Thursday. less than 60 miles and ILENEs first sail since Miami to Fort Lauderdale.

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May 23 24 St Michaels to Chesapeake City to Cape May 68 9 and 68 Miles

The first day of this holiday weekend John and I got underway at 7:15 after I water taxied Lene and the felines in their carrier to Johns car and we raised and secured the dink. And we docked at 8 pm. But we were not actually underway the whole time. We detoured into Annapolis after passing about eighty boat flying spinnakers, racing the other way, headed from Annapolis to St. Michaels. We stopped in Back Bay to fill the fuel tanks, which took an estimated 90 minutes of in and out and waiting on line for the fuel dock with only about 15 of those minutes for the actual fueling.
Our second stop of the day was when we run into the mud trying to enter the harbor on the south side of the C and D Canal, where I had stayed in 2006 on ILENE and last fall on sister ship Pandora. We backed right off the mud and tried to call the marina by phone and VHF. Finally, the person said, "I dont know if you can make it in now, near low tide, but hug the seawall on the left side of the entrance." This was not very reassuring. We had noticed a long high fixed dock with two or three small power boats tied up to it and a busy restaurant on the other side of the canal, less than a quarter of a mile back- Scheafers. Not seeing any sailboats there, I called to ask about depth and they said they had 20 feet minimum at the dock, which our depth meter later confirmed. But they "had to charge us their holiday rate", $2.50 per foot. The restaurant and bar were large and jammed with revelers. We had dinner there and the food was OK.  It seems the place burned down about ten years ago and has recently reopened. It is so easy to get in and out that this will be a place Ill return to, even though they do not have water, electricity or wifi.
Why did it take so long, you might ask. Well the tides were against us all day. We went down the Miles River from St. Michaels against the flood which turned to ebb when we rounded Bloody Point to go north up the Bay. Six hours later this should have changed but then we were confronted by water flowing toward us from the Delaware. Well we have had all-day good tides too, but not today.
John was great help all day, a knowledgeable cautious seaman.

His 28 S2 sloop, "Hearts Content" passed its survey the day before with flying colors. "The best maintained 35 year old S2 I have ever surveyed" said the surveyor. She was Johns friend for the last 25 years, but he also has a 22 foot power boat, "Dixie," and he was not using the sloop and has found her a good home. Second happiest bittersweet day in a mans life: when he sells his boat.
Next morning we continued in the canal starting at 7:15 and found favorable tide. Belt and suspenders, do you think:

No, just an optical illusion with the arch further away and the pretty suspension bridge that Lene drove over the day before in the foreground.
Once in Delaware Bay, the tide was an even bigger help and we made over nine knots until noon. Delaware Bay is a wide boring passage except when freighters pass you by. See bow wake.

As the day wore on, the wind came up strongly, with about 35 knots and gusts to 45 showing on our meter, (though I sense that it reads about five knots too fast). So we had only the small jib and were beating down the Bay. The tricky part was rounding Cape May. The outer passage is a long way around some shoals, which would have added about the miles to our trip in rough weather toward the end of the day. The inner passage saves those miles but put ILENEs port side only about .2 miles from the beach with those big winds and the big waves they created trying to push her onto the beach. We had furled the small jib to gain control over safety for this part of the passage. John wanted the more cautious longer passage, as had part of my crew in 2006 when we did this in calmer weather. We have pictures of the beach with its lighthouse taken from this in close route on this blog in June 2012, on a rather calm day and had done the trip in the opposite direction last fall. Today we were too busy for pictures. it was a two person operation. John steered or to be more precise, controlled the autopilot and watched the waves. One of them sent a spray of water up over the boat soaking him completely. My job wasq operate the InavX on Lenes Ipad, while crouched in the companionway, to protect it from the spray and shade it from the sun. I directed, for example: "Turn right ten degrees." It was like instrument flight rules or sailing in thick fog. I directed our course from the electronic chart, around shoals charted as little as nine feet deep, keeping us in water at least 13 feet deep, without looking up to see where we actually were or where we were going. It was scary but we made it.
Once around the Cape, we turned more north toward the two stone seawalls that mark and protect the channel entrance into Cape May Harbor from the Atlantic. It seemed that we would be surfing down waves barreling directly into the harbor so I turned toward the beach for a practice run in that direction and ILENE seemed to handle it well. In the reality, however, the waves were at about a twenty degree angle from the channel and our passage between the seawalls was relatively easy. We anchored near the Coast Guard Station in about ten feet of water off the green side of the channel with sixty feet of snubbed chain. We were one of about six boats there, each far enough from the others and protected from the SW winds by the land mass of the Cape. John was a bit nauseous, though more from nerves than motion sickness, I think.
We were in by 5:30 and after a breather it was time for dinner. I have tried to get John to try foods that, while within his vegetarian practice, were different from his routine. Tonight we shared his food. I sauteed and steamed some veggies, fake chicken strips and onions, mixed them with whole wheat pasta and dressed it with soy sauce and grated cheese. Pretty good, and it better be because the leftovers is tomorrows dinner too.

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April 9 11 St Augustine to Cumberland Island Lay Day There and then to Fernandina 58 7 Miles and 5 3 Miles

We dropped the mooring at 7:15 to make the 7:30 opening of the Bridge of Lions. We made our way to the inlet using the charted buoys. But from there out to deep water, the buoys are not marked on the chart because they are frequently moved as the waves push the sand around. The marina provided us with a very helpful aerial photograph with the buoys shown. It would have been more helpful for readers had I been able to get this rotated. You can see the white beaches through which we exited and then its simple: Just stay between the reds on your left and greens on your right until "STA" for St.Augustine, the red and white buoy at the open end. Except the buoys are a lot smaller than the dots in the photo and appeared as black dots in the rising sun. We never saw less than 17 feet of water.

And the seas were flat calm, making it easier. Even though when we got in the ocean we put up full sails, we had to motor. Flat seas made a turtle near us visible, however, as well as numerous dolphins.

We lost half an hour when the engine stopped. After tinkering with the filters and switching to the other fuel tank and hand pumping fuel with the hidden lever, she started right up again. During this time the sails were doing little good, 1.8 knots over the ground. A few miles later I noticed that the interlocking Allen head bolts that hold the eye splice at the bitter end of the main sheet in place in a block were missing. Luckily I found the two parts on the deck and locking the boom in place with a different line, I reinserted them onto each other through the splice and used blue Locktite so they will hopefully not fall apart by themselves again.
Around noon the wind came up on our starboard quarter, strongly enough to move the boat at a bit more than five knots. It was such a pleasure to sail, without the noise, that we shut down the engine even though we were making only five knots, a lot less than the 6.5 we had planned for.  These big guys were anchored in our path, about three miles off the mouth of the St. Johns River leading to Jacksonville.

At about 4:30 we gybed for the left turn into the St. Marys River and felt the effect of three knots of adverse current, making only 2.8 over the bottom until we augmented with the engine again. Another gybe and we were headed north up Cumberland Sound where we anchored in 15 feet of water with 60 feet of snubbed chain at 6:30; a long day. We were near s/v Seeker

and Earl and Kathy invited us over for a delicious fun dinner as soon as I got the snubber on and the dink lowered. He is a psychologist who taught groups of corporate executives. They are newly retired and planned to haul Seeker until the fall at nearby St. Marys, where s/v Pandora was earlier this year, They have interesting summer plans including a motorcycle ride from NC to Alaska and back.
Next day I put cat proof screening in the four starboard side opening ports using proper fitting spline that we had obtained in Cocoa. The tops of ILENEs interior cabinetry give our felines access to these screens which they had clawed.
In the afternoon we went ashore and toured the ice house museum and the ruins of Dungeness, the largest (37,000 square feet) of the Carnegie family mansions on Cumberland island. Lene at front; Roger at rear entrance.

We also visited the beach.

The island is 13 miles long and its very clean wide lovely beach is almost unused by humans. Behind Lene is the view to the south and behind me, the north.











In November we saw a few of the horses, but at a distance. Today we saw many and they came close.

Three in the meadow

Three on the trail from the beach, walking past us.

One of the three passing us.

Three more on the beach, one of whom is interested in making more horses.

There is a no-touching rule honored by the humans and the equines. I

keep thinking how much my youngest daughter would love this place though she would not like the law prohibiting the Park Service from feeding, sheltering, grooming or providing veterinary services to the horses. They fend for themselves and are rather small compared to the hunters and jumpers she works with..
Back on ILENE, we prepared for the predicted thunderstorm by letting out twenty more feet of scope. There was no one within several hundred yards of us. We saw the thunderstorm both on radar pictures and in reality, and heard it, moving north, just west of us. No rain and no wind for us.
Our next stop was supposed to be -- and will be -- Jekyll Island, but they had no room for us the first night so we backtracked, south, back into Florida, and took a mooring off Fernandina. Lene wanted to go to the farmers market, where this impromptu group was jamming.

I took this photo just after the two fiddling ladies had left. I walked about a mile further and got two oil filters, one to install at Jekyll and a spare. I also picked up To Kill A Mockingbird, my book groups selection for the May meeting, and a delicious Pecan roll to enjoy with the dinner at the end of Passover.

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May 17 18 St Marys to Solomons and Lay Day There 38 9 Miles

Seven am to 2 pm. We motor sailed down the St. Marys River and out of the Potomac. When we turned north in the Bay, we jibed the main, replaced the small jib with the Genoa, shut off the noise and enjoyed a wonderful beamy port reach, almost to the mouth of the Patuxent River. Here we are passing behind Point No Point Light, with plenty of depth for us.

We were doing seven plus, with favorable tide but the wind gradually diminished. The seas were glassy, indicating no wind, but the wind indicator, 63.5 feet above the water, showed some wind and we were moving at four knots, well above the rate of the tidal flow. But the wind gradually slowed, as did our speed,  to three knots, to two, and then we turned on the engine again. Solomons is only about ten miles from St. Marys as the crow flies, across the neck of land between the Potomac and the Patuxent, but almost four times as far by sea.
We had been to Solomons in 2006, when we docked at the Yacht Club. In 2012, we missed this port when we holed up during a windstorm. This time the threat of another thunderstorm caused us to moor ($30/night) at Zahnisers Marina, at the pencil point. It has been warm and sunny here by day.

We have use of their dinghy dock, showers, garbage disposal, swimming pool (though we did not use it) and loaner bikes. Solomons was bought by Isaac Solomon in 1865 to use as a trading and fish packing place. It was an island then but land fill at the far end attached it to the land. This place is chock full of 17 marinas, yacht Clubs and boat yards, with room to anchor in the other inlets up the eastern branches (the chart is unfortunately displayed with west at the top). We took showers, and used their bikes to go shopping and then to dinner at the eclectic CD Cafe. Our marina also has a barbecue area, (but we did not have charcoal). There we met the owners of s/v Baby B, a Saga 40, in great condition. Many people keep their boats here and drive for hours to enjoy them on weekends.
The first half of our lay day was for chores and then we split up: Lene got the solitude she sought and I visited the Calvert Maritime Museum (and Westmarine, where I managed to buy absolutely nothing!) It turns out that today was National Museum Day, which meant I saved the $9 senior admission fee. They have an outdoor nature station with information about local water grasses and wildlife, a great habitat for the resident otter, an aquarium, lots of stuff for kids, and lots of stuff for me too.

Ned, my docent for a guided tour of the Drum Point Light, which was moved here when it was decaying.

There are only two others of these screwpilers left. One is at the Chesapeake Maritime Museum at St. Michaels (across the Bay and our next stop) and one is still in use, near Annapolis. These screw pile lights are the only pretty ones in the Chesapeake, in my opinion. The wooden handle, below, is to pump up a 150 pound weight, which descends gradually during the next two hours, causing the heavy hammer to strike the outside bell through a removable panel between the windows, twice every fifteen seconds to warn during fog when the light cannot be seen.

ILENEs mast and forestays are visible behind the trees, to the right, from the top of the light.

And tthe museum has boats, of course, lots of boats. I learned that in the War of 1812 the British attacked cities along the Patuxent until they made a land dash from high up the river across to Washington DC, which they sacked. And the mouth of the river was home to three huge military facilities during WWII, for naval aviation, weapons development and amphibious assault.




They have several beautifully restored wooden pleasure craft, an interesting set of exhibits on wood carving (in the background behind this lovingly restored "dugout" fishing boat and with a display of mid century small power racing boats on the balcony),

the art of seam filling, blacksmithery and a large section about the excavation of fossils from the nearby riverfront cliffs. A very nice afternoon. The second nights thunderstorm passed at 1 am, without strong winds and with us safely on a mooring.

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December 10 St Augustine to Daytona Beach 45 Miles

The storm surge having receded from the day before, we got underway at 6:30a.m. motoring the inside passage starting shortly after low tide. We held our breath a few times passing under 65 foot bridges as the tide rose during the day. There were about ten bridges in all but the low ones all opened on request, causing no delays. It began cold but clear and the winds were light. Bundled up, we were warm enough. The ICW here was mostly southerly and deep and wide enough to not be a cause of worry. With the winds mostly easterly, we were able to fly the small jib and later I was emboldened to fly the genoa, which gave us half a knot.

We arrived at the Halifax River Yacht Club  at two. What a club it is. View with Lene from ILENE.

It is easily approached directly from the ICW through a straight, well- marked channel -- a 90 degree right turn west from the ICW just after passing a particular low bridge. You can see the day markers to the sides of ILENEs forestays and part of the bridge to the left.

 The Club is a mile from the beach, using that bridge to cross the ICW.
First built on this site in 1898, it was recently rebuilt. The dockmaster, Peter, formerly a teacher, after directing us to our dock and helping us with our lines and electric cord and brewing a pot of coffee for us, gave us a thorough tour of the place, of which he is justly proud. Im a big booster of the Harlem and could have done no better by the HYC than Peter did for the HRYC. He stubbornly refused our proffered tip. The tides are normally less than a foot here so the docks are fixed, not floating. HRYC has a large and elegant clubhouse and a large membership.  Some of the boats here have been extensively done up in Christmas lights.

The restaurant had only its Tiki menu due to a membership meeting our night there so Peter pointed out several restaurants in easy walking distance, of which we chose McKs Irish Pub. He also pointed out the Clubs health club. He offered to take us to stores in his car and a free bag of ice cubes. The showers are clean and offer a copious flow of hot water. This club has many more members than it has room for boats in its marina. It has three hotel quality meeting rooms and had three outside organizations booked for meetings the day we were there. It has three full time office staff. It offers a free nights dockage for members of any other YC that is part of a council of 30 clubs in Florida. As members of the Harlem we paid only $1.25 per foot. It has an active ocean racing program and a youth program.
The only drawback in my view is that in order to actually sail one has to go fourteen miles south in the narrow ICW and then through the somewhat tricky Ponce de Leon Inlet near New Smyrna to the sea with freedom to select the course you wish. Figuring at least five hours for going out and coming back in, this leaves few hours for a day of sailing.
In the morning we declined the free coffee but Peter took me to the sea for a walk there and I walked back and then took Lene to the Supermarket, waited for her and brought her back.
The beach is quite long and clean. Paddle boarders and surfers were out in wetsuits and the paddleboarders surfed the big waves. I noticed the communities of various species of sea birds standing on the beach, common gulls, those with long orange beaks, with the same beaks but black tipped and sandpipers, all in what appeared to be harmony. I talked with the fishermen on the pier built out into the sea. On my way back, taking the closest street paralleling the beach, I saw the usual suspects: tattoo parlors, salt water taffy, piercing shops, head shops, pizza parlors, fried fish joints surfing shops and those selling towels and tee shirts for women with sexually suggestive double entendres blazoned on the front.
On my way back, from the low bridge next to the Club I shot a view to the north of two high bridges with a low one in between them, under which we had passed.

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November 28 29 St Marys to Cumberland Island and Lay Day There 6 5 Miles

Another short passage, though made longer because Lene had to go grocery shopping again, her fourth day in a row! So we did not leave until early afternoon, when the tide was flooding into the St. Marys River, reducing our speed. Once we arrived and the anchor was securely set, some course plotting for the stops between here and Fort Lauderdale, a good dinner and we snuggled in for a night that was supposed to be even colder than the one before, but wasnt. While I played with the charts, Lene checked out Cumberland Island by trhe internet. It is a "National Seashore" administered by the National Parks Service. Im grateful to Dick and Elle for suggesting Cumberland as a great place to stop and to Lene who found the activities on the island. It is very roughly the size of Manhattan Island and we passed its beachy Atlantic coastal side while heading south for the St. Marys River inlet about a week ago. Our anchoring location was on its east coast, just off "Sea Camp", the NPS ferry dock,

Dinghy left, ILENE, right

where small boatloads of passengers come over from St. Marys, twice a day, to mingle with folks like us who come on our own bottoms.

All the tourists are also divided among those, like us, who spend a day (or less) on the island and those who bring tents, food, water etc., and camp out at its camp sites, by permit, for up to a week, $4.00 per head! The campers can be further divided between those who take campsites less than a mile from the dock, and those who carry all their stuff up to eleven miles (and back) to camp at wilderness sites.The eight folks here came as a group, took the near option and very friendly.

We were fortunate to get two open spots (another couple had not been able to make it) on a guided tour for eight people in a government van for only $12 per senior.

led by NPS agent Roy

This was a six hour tour and Roy kept talking to us throughout and answering our questions about the geology, flora, fauna, history and politics of the island and the state of Georgia.  He was a great tour guide and very knowledgeable...and isnt allowed to accept gratuities!









We saw an armadillo

and more than a dozen of the 150 wild horses who inhabit this island.

They receive no food or veterinary services but live breed and die on the island and are quite unafraid of humans. They are smaller than the jumpers and hunters I know from barns and their life expectancy is half that of domesticated horses. They and the wild boar, were introduced here by the Spanish. We also saw wild turkeys and deer, close up, but without photos.
Live oaks predominate. This one  extends further to the right than shown, and as you can see, is quite wider than it is tall. They

are not harmed by the Spanish Moss that hangs from them, except to the extent that when wet, and the moss can hold up to ren times its weight in water, can break branches off the trees.. The branches can curve down to the ground and back up again, when they grow in open cleared fields, like the one pictured. Most of them are "Second Growth"; the primeval forest having been cut down to supply curved timbers for building ships like Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution, made largely of Cumberland Island live oak.
We visited the first African Baptist Church, near the north end, a very small, one room chapel in which John John F. Kennedy Jr. was married. It was also visited by President Carter, a Georgia boy.

We stopped at Plum Orchard, a huge formal house, of about 25,000 square feet, built by the widow of Andrew Carnegies brother, for one of their sons and his wife. Completed with indoor squash court and swimming pool about 112 years ago, it reminded me a bit of Downton Abbey, in terms of the social structure and activity norms of the people who lived there.

Even larger, 37,000 square feet, was the Dungeness Mansion, built by Mrs. Carnegie for herself on the ruins of the home of the former plantation owner. Her kids decided not to maintain it after her death so only the stone and bare verticals remain.

Ms. Carnegie owned about 95 percent of the island. Sadly, those kids, who never had to go to school or do any work, generally died young, of alcohol related disorders. Roy told us there were very limited fond feelings among the children for their mother.

The island is now almost entirely owned by the government but about five percent of it is held by about 25 folks with "reservations of rights", i.e., the right to exclusive control of their land until they die. Then, one by one, the government will take over and will either restore the buildings for park or administrative uses if they have historic value or raze the structures and let the wilderness take over again. One such rights holder is Carol, who like the horses, lives off the land, at the north end, and has done so for 44 years, while becoming an expert on sea turtles.
This wall is made of "tabby" which is home made "cinder blocks" molded from burned seashells, sand and water to make a cement in which unburned sea shells are embedded in lieu of gravel to make concrete.

In the morning I went back for a walk across the island to the sea. Even with light waves, you could hear the Atlantics roar from half mile away. Long board walks to avoid disturbing the very wide dunes;

except the horses tracks show that they ignore the signs.








And then there is a very wide beach. You can barely see the three NC elementary school teachers, seated, half way back to the dunes, just slightly to the right of center.

On our way back north, we hope to explore this island by bike. We loved Cumberland.

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May 15 16 Colonial Beach VA to St Marys MD and Lay Day There 35 5 Miles

Cool last night. Lene likes fresh air but we kept the hatches and ports closed. We got a late start this morning, 9 am, and it cost us adverse tide until the last eight miles up the beautiful St. Marys River, which was a delicious engineless broad port reach to Horseshoe Bend, with diminishing wind that gradually slowed us from eight to four knots as the headlands on either side cut off the wind. Before this, out in the Potomac, the propeller rattle reappeared and we motorsailed with main and small jib. It was slow at first with light wind and then there were 25 knots, but on our nose, requiring us to beat our way down the Potomac. It was Friday and we saw our first substantial river traffic. A tug was pushing a heavily laden barge in Kettle Bottom Shoals Channel. I called and he asked me to stay outside the channel, which I had planned to do anyway. Also about four cruising sailboats and about ten fishing boats dragging vanes to spread out their lines; they take up a lot of room but we had no close calls. Your photographer was inattentive; sorry.
Horseshoe Bend is roughly circular and about two thirds of a mile in diameter, with water in the teens almost to its edges. On its SE side, near where we anchored in 16 feet of water with 100 feet of snubbed chain, is the waterside sailing center of St Marys College. We are center right. Lots of kids out on skiffs, SUPs, and kayaks. Free use of the schools dinghy dock. A most welcoming place. The school is celebrating its 175th anniversary and has only 2000 students; Lene and I attended much larger schools. St. Marys is

an "honor" college of the University of Maryland. It has the only eating facility in the area, its cafeteria, where you can get all you can eat for $13 for dinner. But with graduation on our lay day, we had their last supper, burgers and dogs. We actually attended the graduation ceremony, why not.  Rashad Robinson, director of The Color of Change, a million member strong on line civil rights group,  gave an address and received an honorary doctorate degree. We stayed until the roll call of the names of the 430 scholars who were awarded their BAs was begun and then toured the campus, which was mostly locked up. We could hear but not see the speakers and a lot more people were seated to the left. The Bend is in the background left. A lovely setting.

 Across the road from the college is "Historic St. Marys City", which was the capital of the Maryland colony from 1636 to 1695, when they moved the colonys capital to Annapolis. Dont get this place confused with the St. Mary on the St. Marys River at the southern edge of Georgia, where we celebrated Thanksgiving.

This is the frame of "a lawyers house" in the former, and possibly future, historic city. It is there to mark where the house was. If they get money they plan to rebuild it as they have some of the houses, stores, a barn a church and the meeting house.





One of the best features is the Dove, built to resemble  a supply ship that accompanied the settlers in 1635. This one has a diesel, hidden away in its bowels, and GPS as backup to its octant. It actually sails, once a month, in the St. Marys River, and once a year it goes further, such as across the Bay.

Here is the Doves Bosn, Jeremy, a retired navy corpsman. We enjoyed talking with each other.

The colony was founded by Catholics who created the first experiment in what our Constitution now calls "the free exercise of religion". But colonial rule was influenced by the religious war in England between Protestants and Catholics, and the experiment was short lived, when the tides of the war turned.








Here is my land docent, (Is it Gretchen, Im so sorry I forgot your name and Lene discarded the paper on which I wrote it!),

soon to graduate from St. Marys with a Masters in Education and return to teaching HS history. The Historic City might become another colonial Williamsburg or Jamestown  but is suffers from a somewhat remote location. They are conflicted between two methods of restoration. The expensive way requires mega doses of expert historians to get it right and craftspeople with knowledge of  and access to period materials and tools. Much cheaper is to erect a structure that looks kinda like what they think the old building looked like. A complicating factor for them is that the land was put to other uses in the intervening centuries, such as a tobacco plantation with its own greathouse in the 19th Century.
I had never heard of the St. Marys settlement and it is a very interesting place to visit and easy for sailors, near the mouth of the Potomac.

Our last night, we experienced a 35 knot thunderstorm. I put on instruments and sat in the cockpit to check against dragging, but we were not, and once having sustained winds of that strength, we relied on the fact that the anchor had dug itself in deep, and called off the watch for the duration. Just a bit lumpy out there.

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April 6 8 Three Lay Days in St Augustine Zero Miles

Laundry, cleaning and shopping, the usual, except for the shopping which we did by dink to a Publix less than half a mile from a dinghy dock which was about 2.5 miles north of our mooring and on the other side of the shoal infested harbor. We took Lenes i-Navx with us and ended at a boat ramp where Arnis met us with his truck and trailer, took our dink and gave us and our five bags of groceries a ride back to the marina. Two days later he picked us up on the street in front of the marina, drove us back to the boat ramp and launched the dink so we could drive her home to the marina and later to our boat. Hopefully, the gash is history. He said he put a patch on the inside (how the heck is that done) and then a larger one on the outside in addition.

But life is more than chores and repairs. We visited the Villa Zorayda, built by a wealthy Boston man in the 1880s to resemble the Alhambra palace in Grenada Spain, where he had traveled and fallen in love with things Moorish. Of course it is much smaller than the original but its rooms have the same names including a two story central atrium, like Viscaya in Coconut Grove, a harem room with an overhanging window through which inhabitants could look out without being viewed. The house was stuffed with furnishings from throughout Europe and the Middle East, including a "cat rug" in which a mummy was found buried in a pyramid. The house later passed into the hands of a Mr. Mussalem, a respected dealer in antique Oriental rugs and later became a hotel, speakeasy and gambling club. I just loved the floor, composed of square tiles that are each identical but arranged to form two patterns.

I walked to the Lighthouse and back, about four miles round trip. But I could not climb the  219 steps to its light room which was closed for painting. So we were given a guided tour by Don, a retiree who seemed to love his subject. Much of his talk had to do with the work done there and the processes of the preservation of parts of sunken ships, as was done the The Vasa in Stockholm (Blog June 2014) and about a wooden boat building project.

We toured the home that the two lighthouse keeper families and their assistant shared and I thought of the similarities of the US and Scottish lighthouse services. The lighthouse is on Anastasia Island and I checked out the St. Augustine YC, on its eastern side, behind the barrier island, while there.

I visited two historic houses, first the Pena-Peck house, built as a Spanish style open home around a courtyard with shutters but no windows behind them for the Spanish Tax Collector, Senor Pena. After a second story was built in the English style, it became the home and office of Dr. Peck of Whitestone, New York and his family. His decendents lived there until 1931 when the last died childless and the house was given to the city. My docent there was a Ms. Policer,

who had moved back to this area after her husband retired from his work in California. She mentioned that Dr. Peck had lived in the Ximenos-Fatios House, a few blocks away (everything is only a few blocks away in the center of this historic town). I had planned that as my next stop and learned that the house had been one of several boarding houses that competed with hotels in the mid nineteenth century. They were run by women and served nine course dinners as well as multi course lunches and breakfasts. The two names represent the names of the first and last owners during the period that was of interest to the preservationists and in reading the placards I learned that one Menorcan (I would have said Minorcan) woman whose surname was Policer, had married a man who had built or owned this house early in its history. So maybe, my docent at the first house was of Menorcan descent and has roots in St. Augustine that go way back, which she did not mention. Another thing: tourists did not arrive by railroad, car or boat (or airplane); they took a steamer up the St. Johns River past Jacksonville and then by stagecoach, east from that river to St. Augustine.

One attraction that I did not visit was El Galleon, from Spain, which will be here until june and plans to visit Philadelphia next. To get under the Bridge of Lions, she had to trim her spars fore and aft and squeeze through with inches to spare.

Anchor is "catted"

We had two good restaurant meals, the first at Columbia,

which we had visited in 2012, and the second at Collage, a newer place which was one of the few "fine dining" experiences we have treated ourselves to on this trip. Excellent service by well trained, well dressed, efficient, lovely, young ladies and interesting imaginative food. In New York such a dinner would have cost $100 per person; here it was half that. In hindsight the two meals share one thing in common: local spicy smoky red peppers. At Columbia they were stuffed with chorizo and spanish ham and baked under an almond sauce and at Collage they were pureed with carrot in a soup.
And we had a pumpkin/mango pancake breakfast
aboard ILENE with Earl and Kathy of s/v Seeker, friends of Dean and Susan who introduced us to each other in St. Augustine on the way south. One of my favorite feelings is the joy I get when I introduce friend A to friend B and they hit it off. Thanks, Dean.

St Augustine still has several attractions that, even after three extended visits here, we have not seen.
Sunset from our mooring.

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