St. Augustine – 4 kilometres walked, 2 miles by dinghy
I forced myself to sleep until 8am and I woke up refreshed and ready. Last night John and Becca had reminded us that today was American Thanksgiving so most or nearly all the stores and restaurants in town would be closed today, providing a good opportunity to do some boat maintenance. I changed the engine oil, oil filters, transmission oil, and both the fuel filters while Ana worked on cleaning and fixing up some door handles that weren’t working quite right.
With a bag of used filters, a container of spent oil and diesel, and all of our trash, we dinghy'd into the town marina, paid $13 to rent a dock space, and were able to unload it all there, then walked into town, but this time from the other side. What a difference! We immediately came upon the Hotel Alcazar, a magnificent Spanish Renaissance Revival building and, since it was closed, could only peek in through the iron gates to see the lavish courtyard. Across from here was the Ponce de Leon hotel (now a classy liberal arts college) and both of these were built by an insanely wealthy 1800’s industrialist named Henry Flagler. The gardens and rotunda of the college were open to the public so we gawked in astonishment at the incredible terra cotta finishings, marbled floors, elaborately carved wooden pillars – the whole complex was incredible. And it was not packed with tourists. My opinion of St. Augustine has just rocketed up.
Ana and I wandered around the historic district for a while and it was easier to admire the many and varied buildings with fewer people around. Many of the buildings had standardized and elegant plaques describing the origin of the structure, architectural highlights, and history of the use of it. I stopped to read many of these. We also dipped into a couple of the arcades which disappeared into the guts of building complexes and these had the predictable shops, but also those cheesy carnival machines – Zoltar the Fortune Teller, Merlin the Mystic, the Love Tester, all of which are now found only in Florida and horror movies.
Though there was not much open, we did find a cute Cuban café tucked away off a side street and sat down to enjoy a coffee for Ana and a cold Presidente beer and ham croquette for myself. Every other patron there was Cuban and we enjoyed listening to their sometimes indecipherable rapid-fire Spanish.
We cruised back to the boat, had a change of clothes, then dinghy’d over to the nearby Lagoon 42 catamaran, owned by Peter, a German fellow we had met yesterday when he came over to borrow an oil filter wrench, and had invited us for a drink. He and his family were at the end of a year-long sabbatical. His wife and daughter had recently returned to Germany, leaving Peter and his son there, but only Peter was on the boat when we arrived. He invited us aboard and we had a lovely conversation in the luxurious cockpit as we enjoyed a drink, some fresh pineapple we had brought over, and watched the sun slowly sink into the horizon.
Back at the boat, we made a lovely Thanksgiving dinner of tuna steaks, green beans, grilled potatoes and salad then watched a bit of tv before calling it a night. Tomorrow would be our final day in this interesting city then we planned to continue our journey south.
And today you’re a boat engine mechanic. lol.
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