Heading South

We arrived at St. Augustine at about 10am on Saturday morning.  St. Augustine is an absolutely beatiful city.  It is dominated by a Spanish motif with ornate buildings trimmed in wrought iron.  The downtown is filled with little shops of every description, many of which cater to the Cuban population.  Much of the city center is pedistrian walkways so cars are not an issue.  We really enjoyed our day puttering around the city.

We wanted to stay another day, but the desire/need to keep moving south won out.  We again went "outside" into the Atlantic (not wanting to deal with the ICW) and motored along the coast at about 3 miles out.  We traveled about 50+ miles and it was time to seek an anchorage for the night; so we turned into Ponce de Leon Inlet right at sunset:

As it was getting dark quickly, we had to get the anchor down as soon as possible,  The shallow creeks are no place to be moving around after dark.  (Although we have come in at sunset so many times on this trip we are thinking of renaming the boat "Late Arrival")       The "official" anchorage was about 2 miles south of the inlet  down a creek through some pretty "skinny" water.   This was not a viable option as it was almost dark, so we looked at the charts and instead of heading south inside the inlet, we went north and found a spot just behind the lighthouse on the inside of the inlet.  Ice cold beers and burgers on the grill was the evening fare as we looked at the scenery from the cockpit:                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Not a bad view on a warm evening ?!

We were off and running first thing this morning.  I am typing this post from the nav-station as we are motor-sailing down the coast bound for Cape Canaveral.  We intend to spend a couple of days at the Cape and visit the Kennedy Space Center and do some maintance on the boat while we have Mike aboard.  I have been working on his "to do" list since I learned he was coming.  All for now, THE CREW plus ONE