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| Walkway in St. Augustine |
We crossed into Florida on Saturday the 3rd, and spent two days in St. Augustine and two days in New Smyrna Beach. St. Augustine is the oldest city in the USA with a recorded history that spans over 450 years. We took a trolley tour around the city, walked the shopping area and had a great lunch at the Floridian, topped off with ice cream and fudge from one of the dozens of sweet shops in town. The city is quite beautiful and owes much of its charm to railroad and hotel magnet Henry Flagler, who constructed a number of beautiful buildings and churches that honored the City's Spanish heritage. His grand hotel is now Flagler University.
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| Fagler University in the former hotel. |
We toured the Castillo de San Marcos, a fort built in 1672 by the Spanish to defend against the English and later the French. The fort has changed hands 6 times and was in continuous military use for 250 years. We watched a reenactment of a cannon firing. The whole firing process was complicated and took roughly 20 minutes with commands in Spanish to the 10 or so soldiers involved. If you look closely at the firing picture below you will see the Spanish soldiers, in full military dress covering their ears. The cannons had a firing range of 1 1/2 - 3 miles!
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| Castillo de San Marcos |
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| Soldiers resting before the cannon firing. |
We toured the Castillo de San Marcos, a fort built in 1672 by the Spanish to defend against the English and later the French. The fort has changed hands 6 times and was in continuous military use for 250 years. We watched a reenactment of a cannon firing. The whole firing process was complicated and took roughly 20 minutes with commands in Spanish to the 10 or so soldiers involved. If you look closely at the firing picture below you will see the Spanish soldiers, in full military dress covering their ears. The cannons had a firing range of 1 1/2 - 3 miles!  |
| New Smyrna Beach's beach. Known for surfing. |
New Smyrna Beach was a pleasant surprise with a free city dock. Here we met and talked to some fellow boaters, along with retirees walking along the waterfront.
We made two trips to the local ice cream shop and road our bikes to the Beach, where one can pay a toll and drive on the beach for a few miles. 
We anchored Wednesday afternoon (12/7) within easy viewing of the Cape Canaveral launch site in 6 feet of water. No other boats were in sight, which was not unusual since most of the boats traveling down the Intracoastal Waterway are sailboats with 4-6 foot drafts. Prior to the 6:53 pm scheduled launch we found a "live" phone link to the launch (later learned it had a 90 second delay!). After an early dinner, we took our wine and lounge chairs to the roof and nestled in for an exciting launch. Around 6:53 pm we noticed the flash of a launch south of where we had been focused. Little did we know that NASA has multiple rocket pads and we were viewing the wrong one! The launch was still great, and Bill posted a video on his Facebook page. For the first 30 seconds or so, the bright ball of light looked as though it were heading right toward us. I had at least half my life flash before my eyes!Today we sped down the ICW, intending to get as far south as possible so that we will be ready to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas at the next acceptable weather window, perhaps Monday (12/12) or Tuesday (12/13). We subscribe to Marv's Weather Service, which gives us a compilation of and links to all weather forecasts, buoy reports and other useful information. Because the Gulf Stream flows north, it is critical to not make the crossing with the wind out of any where north since the wind against the flow results in much larger waves and unsettled chop.
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