St Augustine 29:50.97N 81:18.96W
Lotus
Wed 9 Jun 2010 22:49
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We left Cocoa Village after a drunken night
out with the locals, John had his first taste of cider since the supplies
that Leslie had bought him to cross the Atlantic. It was only Magners but
it was good enough and he over indulged. A small jaunt up the ICW took us
to the Canaveral barge canal and a huge lock system into the open sea where we
were greeted by loads of turtles (they didn't actually form a welcoming
committee to shake our hands, but there were lots of them and they kept popping
up along the boat). A slow overnight passage saw us entering the oldest
established town in North America - St Augustine, where we anchored up outside
the fort. The town was really pleasant with lots of historical buildings,
a pedestrianised shopping/tourist area and lots of nice places to have a
drink or buy an ice cream.
We hired a car so that I could run John to the
airport where he was catching a flight home for the week end to say goodbye and
good luck to Guy and Ann who were moving to New Zealand and to visit his mum who
hasn't been very well. That gave me three free days to explore the local
area, so off I went to Jacksonville, which I found, no problem, without a
map. However, finding the actual centre was a little tricky and when I
asked for directions from a local taxi driver he directed me to the 'town centre
which was the name of the local shopping mall, not quite what I was
expecting.
The bay where we were anchored had regular dolphin
visitors and our first from the US coast guard, to whom I played little lady
left on her own as an explanation as to why we hadn't checked in. They
were very nice and told me if I needed any help to give them a call. I
went back to Orlando to pick John up from the airport, it would have been
criminal not to go and see Shamu and the dolphin show again so I went off to Sea
World. John's flying visit, no pun intended, had left him quite tired so
we spent the next day lounging around in the boat whilst it hammered down
outside. The next day we set off to Savannah in South
Carolina.
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