Merry Christmas

Ho Ho Ho and Merry Christmas to all.

We left St. Augustine on 12/23 and spent Christmas in Daytona Beach among the tornadoes. We had lots of rain, thunder and lightning with a tornado 4.3 miles from our boat. Ignorance is bliss, they say, and we had no clue how close it had come to us until the next day when we watched the news.

We are now in Titusville (close to Cocoa Beach and home of the 24 hour surf shop Ron Jon's). We are enjoying fair weather and great marine mammels. We have seen our first Manatees. They are enormous and very docile. It is against the law to pet them so ofcourse we are not touching them! Not even Meghan.

It has been great fun to have Meghan and Dana with us. Having four people on deck for docking is great. How will we get along without them???? Ha Ha.

Steve and I are getting used to life onboard and look forward to our next port of call, wherever that may be? We have gotten used to not making too many plans because you never know what Mother Nature has planned.

Happy New Year from the Captain and The First Mate

St. Augustine

This is the gateway to St. Augustine. The tall structure in the middle is a temporary bridge. The tall section raises up and down on the hour and half hour if boats with tall masts (us) need to pass through. On the left, in front of the cranes, is the marina. You can see parts of the old Bridge of Lions in the front. This is a historic bridge that is being restored. What a project. The good news is the crew stopped working at noon on 12/22 and will not return until 1/2/07....yahoo. This is the oldest house in St. Augustine. Europeans were here as early as the 16oo. The town has many such historic homes with cobbled streets. It also has an Island flair with many moss covered oak trees, palms, tropical plants and balmy weather.

Of course there are many restaurants. Scarlett Oharas came highly recommended. During "Happy Hour" you can get $.25 (ea) shrimp. These are great shrimp from the gulf, big juicy shrimp, delicious. We have sampled many other foods here so don't hesitate to ask us for a suggestion should you be lucky enough to visit here. Thanks for all your comments. We love to read what you write back.

Happy Holidays

Back in Florida

We left San Diego on Monday, December 18th at 6am. It was 37 degrees in Carlsbad. The cold weather wont leave us alone. The good news is we woke up on Tuesday morning in Florida and it was 78 degrees.....shorts, t-shirt, flip flops, beer....you get the picture.
After a day of provisioning and getting over jet lag we left Jacksonville and motored south to St. Augustine. We are planning to spend the next few days here. It is beautiful: Christmas lights, decorations, great food, lots of history, beautiful shops. What could be wrong with this place you may ask??? It is the new bridge they are building right next to the marina. They evidently work all day and night: generators, bright lights, banging, hammering, swearing (us not them). We are not sure we can handle it so we may leave early, not sure. But this place is beautiful and we will post some photos tomorrow.
Happy Holidays from the captain and the crew.