With news from home of cold and snow, I feel both embarrassment and joy.  The first emotion is part of being British:  we are enjoying temperatures as high as 25 degrees C and wall to wall sunshine, whilst friends and family are not… “Should I be telling them that we are having a nice time?” The second because this is just how I imagined our cruising weather would be and it’s great.  One couple we met told us that in the three years they have been sailing they have never worn their oilskins – indeed the purchase labels are still on them.

Sailing down the coast of Florida I don’t think I have ever seen so much bird life.  I am no ornithologist, but greatly enjoy the array of birds gliding, soaring, diving, screaming in their masses around the shrimp boats and scooping up their catch.  On shore the cranes strut with sartorial elegance, purposefully placing each foot as if to maximize the pose on a catwalk and looking down their long beaks with an air of superiority.  One small white bird blew this look completely by having overly large bright-yellow feet. 

Pelicans, however, have been my all-time favourite. At first I thought of them as Hercules aircraft: greyish, a big undercarriage and a huge beak that could scoop up lots of supplies in a short space of time. They look purposeful.  However, I seem to have such an affinity with them I am beginning to think that it’s because we are alike.  If you consider a swan and it’s all about appearance: they float about, very rarely bother to fly, look as though they are wearing mascara and seem to spend a lot of time preening. A pelican is all about action and having a nice time.  With their dowdy colouring, unruly feathers and over-long face how could they possibly worry about their image?  Like me, it’s almost as though they act before they think: there they are, sitting around chatting, when suddenly they leap up in the air, then smack hard in to the water to catch an unsuspecting fish.

Our visit to St Augustine started with us following a drama on the VHF radio.  A US tow boat had sunk in the entrance to the St Augustine inlet.  Eventually the coastguard did safely find the person who had gone overboard.  The east coast of Florida seems to be like one long sand dune, with inlets and shallow waterways set behind it and the protected Intracoastal Waterway weaving its way along the whole length, connecting the towns. If, like us, your mast is too tall for the 65’ bridges - you travel on the ocean, but it seems that the further south you go, the fewer places there are that you can cut in through the sand dune. As you enter St Augustine inlet no permanent buoys are charted to mark the entrance.  With shifting sands and the surf breaking on either side of the channel, you certainly need to be alert.

Spain claimed Florida as theirs in the mid-1500s.  It was significant as a departure port for the galleons, laden with treasures from their empire, to take advantage of the Gulf Stream and return home.  It also needed to be garrison town, first against the French and then the British. The impressive Castillo de San Marcos (which still stands today) proved unassailable for the Brits, although they did get to own it for twenty years when they signed the Treaty of Paris in 1763 - trading Havana with Florida.  Interestingly enough, with American independence Florida becomes Spanish again until 1821.

Henry Flagler, Gilded Age industrialist, railroad pioneer and oil magnate, amplified the Spanish feel to this town. He came for the climate as his wife was ill, but stayed and developed it in to a holiday resort for his wealthy contemporaries.  Built in the Spanish Renaissance style, the magnificent Hotel Ponce de Leon (now the centerpiece for the Flagler College) was the first major edifice in the United States to be constructed of poured concrete. 

We enjoyed an eclectic collection in the Lightner Museum (another Flagler hotel), various churches and just wandering around the town (particularly at night as the trees and buildings were beautifully decorated with white Christmas lights). With the sea temperature now at 24 degrees C it is even warm enough to tempt John in to the surf.