imageThe weather was favorable for departing Port Canaveral on Saturday, even though we were tempted to stay longer and enjoy the good camaraderie there. Anyway, we had a really lovely, relaxing easy sail on a broad reach with winds around 10-12 knots almost all the way to St. Augustine. We knew we wanted to time our arrival at St Augustine to catch the beginning of the flood tide through the sandbar so we were in no rush. We sailed almost all the way, apart from the last few hours when the wind dropped. The charts don’t mark the channel into St. Augustine because it moves after storms, etc. so we were a bit nervous about the approach. We were told that the thing to do is to contact the local Tow Boat, which we did to get the current buoy positions. They actually sent us a picture of the channel and buoyage via text, which was a fantastic help. It turned out to be relatively easy, particularly because we arrived on a Sunday early afternoon so there were plenty of other pleasure boats around to help show us the way. We took a mooring just before the Bridge of Lions at the Municipal Marina. It’s a great deal as the facilities (showers, laundry, wi-fi) are excellent and the mooring only costs $20 a night….. and we are right across from the center of town.

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Saint Augustine has a bit of history with a strong Spanish influence, being originally settled by the Spanish. Having been attacked by Sir Francis Drake and others, a stone fort was built to defend the city. The Castillo de San Marcos was completed in 1695 and remains today, never once having been taken by force. So, there are re-enactments today for the benefit of tourists that include firing cannons, pirate ships having ‘battles’ in the bay, etc., etc. It is quite charming but definitely a tourist destination.

Today we rented a car and drove to discover what our ‘home’ address looks like. We are using a mail forwarding service designed for cruisers like us, which is based in Green Cove Springs, about a 35 minute drive from St Augustine. Our ‘home’ consists of a shoe-box sized mail box, which we proceeded to empty. Tomorrow’s task is to obtain Florida driving licenses before heading out with a real estate agent whom Howard had worked with previously to look at a few properties that are on the market here …. just in case we think about settling here at some stage in the future.