We arrived in St. Augustine, FL on Sat. Nov. 27 following an all day and overnight sail from Isle of Hope (Savannah) GA with a good northerly breeze. We had arranged to pick up a city mooring as we had heard there was a lot of current and it worked out such that we arrived just after the noon check in and in time for the Michigan vs. Ohio State football game. Despite being close to a busy town center, the internet connection was weak so at half time, we headed ashore where we found the game on tv at the Chatsworth Pub and cheered our team to victory. Afterwards, we wandered through some old streets with Spanish influenced architecture and artist’s shops, then back to the boat by sunset for the evening light display. St. Augustine attracts a lot of tourists between Nov. and Dec. for their “Nights of Lights” holiday light display (https://www.floridashistoriccoast.com/nights-lights/) where thousands of little white lights illuminate the buildings along the waterfront. By chance, our mooring gave us one of the best views of this spectacle and of the Castillo San Marco, the old Spanish fort on the waterfront.
On Sunday, a lot of tourists were still milling around the downtown so we had a slow morning on the boat before setting off to play a game of tennis around 3:30 pm (being further west, the sun has been setting around 5:15 pm). The tennis courts were great but our discount balls purchased on Amazon were duds making for an interesting game. But it didn’t matter as the highlight of the day was to be dinner with Jan and Tanya- local Beneteau 423 owners that Harry had connected with online - at 6:00 pm. Jan and Tanya were days away from casting off for the Bahamas and their boat, named “Sloth” was of similar age to ours so much comparing of maintenance tasks took place over drinks and dinner at the Salt Fish restaurant on Anastasia Island, just across the ICW from St. Augustine. As it turned out, Jan was a very experienced sailor from Germany who had competed in solo trans-Atlantic yacht races (thus he gave his Beneteau the name Sloth because by comparison, it is very slow), and Tanya had spent many years on a trawler in the Bahamas. It was a very pleasant evening and we hope our paths will cross again soon.
First thing Monday morning, we headed ashore to the main attraction in St. Augustine- the Castillo San Marco -the oldest masonry building in the continental USA built by the Spanish between 1672-1695 to protect them from the English. See the virtual tour of the fort at https://arcweb.forest.usf.edu/dhhc/NPS-CASA/CASA-VR/. The Castillo San Filipe del Morro in San Juan which we visited in San Juan is older and very similar.) There they had on display several cannons from the period that had been cast in Spain and nicely restored. We skipped quickly past the tourist shops along St George ‘s Street, ate lunch on the boat then walked across the Bridge of Lions almost 2 miles to the St. Augustine Lighthouse that guards the nation’s oldest port. There we climbed the 219 steps to the top of the lighthouse and toured the keeper’s house that was manned until 1956. For us the quiet and calm of the lighthouse was a welcomed reprieve from the hustle of the city. After our walk back, we quenched our thirst with a cold beer from the Ancient City Brewery.
We finished our visit Tuesday morning seeking out bagel shop, a bit of tennis, and a post office. Unfortunately, the bagel shop was closed for a few days. After returning to the boat we cast off the mooring and requested the next opening for the Bridge of Lions to continue south to Fort Matanzas.
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