Shorts Weather...Finally!

Temperature hit 70 degrees in St. Augustine and we were actually able to wear shorts for a few hours! Woo-hoo! As we tied up to the mooring ball, St. Augustine's water-front began to glow with Christmas lights. All of the buildings were outlined in white lights – it was beautiful.

We enjoyed walking around town Friday night. We saw Santa and purchased a few Christmas tree ornaments to decorate our tree (which we still have yet to find)! Saturday morning we went to The Sailors Exchange, which is a huge marine consignment shop. To get an idea of how big it was, this was a table that was filled with all different types and sizes of screws.

We left 2 hours later with our arms loaded! On the way back to the boat we stopped for a snack in a courtyard where a man was playing Christmas carols on his accordion.

Picture of our "Snack"! Mom, Christine, and Erin split this...

When we first arrived we noticed a boat with kids next to us, so we went over and introduced ourselves. They just started a three year cruise and have a 11 year old girl and an almost 13 year old boy. We enjoyed walking around town with them, and may see them again in the Bahamas.

We enjoyed our lay-over day, but Saturday morning we left at first light. We left at first light and enjoyed another beautiful sunrise on the water.

After a long day we anchored near Ponce de Leon inlet. There was an ocean beach nearby, so the kids and mom took Tazzie in the dinghy over for a walk on the beach. It turned into quite an adventure! On the way over we hit bottom and had to climb out and pull the dinghy off of the sand bar. Then we had to inch our way along, with two people watching out for shallow water. We finally made it to the beach and saw some dolphins near shore. We saw some dark clouds rolling in, so we hopped into the dinghy to head back to our boat. This time, it was close to dusk, so we had a hard time seeing the bottom. Since it was to dark to tell depths, we decided to hop in the channel and head back up to our boat via the ICW. By this time, the dark clouds were over-head and it was beginning to rain. By the time we got back to the boat, we were cold, wet, and sandy. Thankfully, Dad had a hot meal ready for us, and we played another game of Catan! It was a rolly anchorage that night, due to the wind and opposing current from the inlet. In the middle of the night the snubber line came off of our anchor and a few feet of anchor chain was pulled out of the boat. It sounded like a freight train and woke us up. We were happy to leave that anchorage in the morning, even though it was another cold, gray, and rainy day.

Because of the lack of sleep last night, and windy conditions, we decided to stay in a marina near Cape Canaveral. As soon as we arrived, mom took Tazzie to a pet exercise area, and there met a boating couple from Havre de Grace! They live on their boat in the City Yacht Basin near Tidings Park in the summer, and travel to Florida in the winter. It's a small world!

Picture of the back of our boat from where Erin was sitting on the boom.