Fernandina Beach to St Augustine, Florida

The towns along the northern Florida coast were hard hit by Hurricane Matthew, especially when the arrival of the hurricane coincided with high tides as it did in St Augustine.  In the photos below along the Fernandina Beach waterfront, we saw heavily damaged boats being hauled away on barges, or possibly abandoned after having been driven ashore. Very sad to see so many ruined boats and so many marinas struggling to get back in business.

Despite the damage of the hurricane, Fernandina Beach is a neat town and we'd been looking forward to seeing it again.  We have two friends from the Eastport Yacht Club who live here now - Dennis and Julia. They were around, working on getting their boat "Delta Blues" ready to go cruising, so we stopped for a few days to visit. Our stay also overlapped with that of more mutual friends from Eastport Yacht Club, Carroll and Rob, traveling south on their boat "Kindred Spirit".  We all got together for drinks and dinner - a treat to see each other in this warm and inviting little city. 

Below is a shot of the main street in Fernandina Beach. It has some magnificent old homes and neighborhoods and some cool, funky neighborhoods too. Lots of good restaurants and bars and great little shops. The bookstore on the main street had mannequins in the window dressed in velvet jackets and paper skirts made from the pages of old books. Pleated, curled, scalloped pages of books.

Dennis and Julia lent us their car one day so that we could go see Fort Clinch State Park.  We were able to tour the Fort and walk through the interior rooms. Below is the dining room for the top ranking officers - lace tablecloths and all.

And in stark contrast, this is the jail cell where the drunks, thieves and laggards spent their time with wooden signs around their necks indicating their particular indiscretion. The signs are a bit hard to read but they're in the photo.

Dennis and Julia invited us on a crazy trolley ride through the Christmas-decorated neighborhoods of Fernandina Beach. All my photos are blurry, but you get the idea.  We heard that if you buy a house in one neighborhood in particular, you inherit the decorations and are honor-bound to put them up faithfully each year.

Next stop for us was St Augustine, about 60 miles south of Fernandina Beach on the ICW. We spent one night about halfway there at anchor, arriving in St Augustine the next afternoon. On the way we saw these guys casting nets for bait fish.

We also saw flocks of pure white pelicans. Although a group of pelicans is apparently called a "pod". Not quite as colorful as a "murder" of crows.

In St Augustine we decided to stay at a marina for a while since it can get quite chilly and windy here in December. It's nice to be able to plug in a heater (our boat does not have heat). And to have hot showers, washers and dryers, a protected slip, a little local fruit and vegetable market right around the corner and bikes we can borrow any time we want. What luxury!! We are a half hour walk from the town center, or a 10 minute bike ride. Below is the entrance to the interior courtyard of the Lightner Museum.

This is the same courtyard, which has very tall palm trees and a little bridge over a central pond full of koi and minnows.

The architecture in St Augustine is heavily influenced by the Spanish who founded the city. Red tiled roofs, white stucco and coquina walls, lots of balconies and wrought-iron gates and railings. 

St Augustine is famous for its "Nights of Lights" for the holidays. Downtown is decorated with over 3 million little white lights, in addition to colored lights as shown here along the waterfront.

 Another later view of the waterfront.

St Augustine is the oldest city in the US. Along the oldest street in the US - Aviles Street - there is an annual "Running of the Bulls" in December. Three bulls (see below) chase kids first and adults after that.  The kids were very cute and took the event pretty seriously.

The same afternoon on Aviles Street there was a demonstration of flamenco dancing. Well, sort of flamenco dancing. I thought the musicians looked like they were having a pretty good time.

More to come later on St Augustine. This is it for now.