St George’s Day, St Augustine

It’s a sewing day, so out comes the machine and the gennaker is repaired from the storm the other night. The dinghy cover tape has rotted in the sunshine and salt, so that is on the list and the binocular strap (another casualty of the storm) gets treated! Evening comes and we are back over to Spectra for lots of drink and a great fish pie. Thanks for a lovely meal, guys.

     All the frayed bits cut off the gennaker              Gennaker fixed                       Flying the flag

We catch the 10am water taxi as it’s a bit too choppy for dinghies and head off for a shop! Out to lunch and cocktails, of course, at Harry’s outside in the courtyard.

The children were sitting so nicely together, we decided to let them go to the chandlers on their own!

Norma lining up her cocktails!

Trolley bus tour round St Augustine including a tour of the distillery with free G&T and a Vodka Mule.

Sundowners on RT with Spectra to wish them goodbye as they leave tomorrow to chug on up the ICW.

We’ll miss them, they’ve been great accomplices on our various trips to restaurants, cafes, sight-seeing tours and a few alcoholic outings! Look forward to seeing them in July in UK.

Motivated by the desire not to sit around the boat all day, we decide to “do” the chocolate factory and wine tours. The weather has been cloudy and threatening rain for the last 2 days so, not surprisingly, we get caught in a downpour half way there! Great chocolate and horrid wine, little surprise that Florida is not well known for it’s wines!

Yes, I know, he’s special, but he was forced to wear it!

The cooler is only allowed to be open for 5 seconds while we ogle the truffles looking inviting – surprise, surprise they are available in our gift shop! Couldn’t resist sampling the chocolate covered caramels topped with sea-salt.

  Don’t bother to wrap mine, I’ll just eat them straight off the line!

We catch the free water taxi to shore and the free bus to Walmart to do a 4 week stock-up shop for Mike’s return trip. Yet again we are reminded how much we like St Augustine, everybody so helpful and kind and great service from the marina people and the town generally. Love coming back here. I pick up the one-way car hire from Budget to get me to Orlando airport tomorrow, only $45 for a 24 hour hire and I get a lovely gold convertible Beetle. Great! We get back to the marina and the lovely marina manager agrees to take Mike and all his food shopping back to the boat outside the normal 2 hourly water taxi service which usually operates from 10am to 6pm, well done St Augustine. Sadly, the weather conspires against us getting a farewell apero ashore and we ge soaked by a huge downpour in the attempt!

Next morning we are in the dinghy by 8am so I don’t get a morning parking ticket and I set off for a 2 hour drive to Orlando to catch my flight back to Gatwick, via JFK and Reykyavik! A long journey but it gets me to Gatwick around midday, so no congestion for Will to pick me up. Meanwhile, Mike takes up the log writing.

Kate is away early in her fancy soft top Beetle hire car, keen to get home I’m sure. Once back on the boat I look again at the weather and decide to leave today although the decision is not clear cut. Leave today and run into some strong northerlies after crossing the Gulf Stream or leave tomorrow and miss the strong northerlies but risk being caught by the small tropical depression coming up from the South later in the week. Either way, the wind will go light before I can reach Bermuda. Through the 9.30am bridge, clear of the channel and engine off by 10am. Entrance was a little rough, with wind over tide.  The wind is very cold (this is Florida?) and it’s full gear on for the first 24hrs. NW3 and 4 hours motoring in the evening.

Just the 208nms from Fort Lauderdale to St Augustine this month making 9831nms since RT was last in Ramsgate.