St. Augustine

We had a fun time in St. Augustine.  On Wednesday we brought the bicycles to shore.  We rode west to a used boat parts store, a West Marine, and Winn-Dixie.  After taking our purchases back to the boat via dinghy, we went back to shore and rode our bikes east to Mellow Mushroom.  We walked off some pizza in the old district and called it a fairly early evening. 

On Thursday we rode back west to a canvas shop we stopped at the day before inquiring about material we needed.  She sent us back with a sample to make sure that's what we wanted before we purchased the wrong size again.  When we got there, she was not in the shop to give a price on the material we wanted and would not be back until after lunch.  We couldn't think of anywhere else to explore except back to the east at the lighthouse.  We climbed to the top ahead of the school group, but those youngsters were already up there by the time we were ready to head down the 217 steps.


This was the view from the top.  We could actually see "The Second Noelle".

This was the view of the lighthouse
from our cabana for lunch.

By the time we left the lighthouse we were hungry so we stopped at The Conch House for a lovely setting and delicious lunch.  We worked off those calories by riding back to the other side of town to the canvas shop once again, with success.  Upon returning to the mooring field we went ahead and dinghied the bicycles back to "The Second Noelle", assuming we would not be using them anymore.
For the evening we met up with Terry and Donna from "Meridian", inviting them to join us for our planned free dinner at A1A Ale Works.  We knew they were associated with one of our favorite restaurants in Chattanooga, but found out that Chattanooga is actually the corporate headquarters.  With that information we asked if they would honor a coupon we got for a free entrée for Ray's birthday.  They said yes, so we printed the coupon plus turned in our points rewards on their passport card and got $50.  It was a great evening, wonderful food, and splendid live music entertainment to boot.
This morning we were up fairly early thinking we would leave close to low tide and get a push from the incoming tide.  That didn't work again of course.  We puttered along all day at about six miles per hour.  It was like a parade of boats today with all of the snowbirds heading south.  We were overtaken an unfathomable amount of times today.  We did overtake one sailboat.  We tried pulling into one anchorage, but found it too shallow, so we fell back a couple of boats in line.  We ran an eight hour day to anchor just outside the ICW channel in what is labeled Halifax Lake near Ormond Beach.

One of the many boats that overtook us today.