Florida Finally

I'm giving up on trying to catch up with this travelogue. It's like trying to eat the oldest food in the fridge first, you never get caught up and it all tastes bad. So on with today's events. We have a free dock in New Smyrna, FL, one of those posted "no overnights". This will be our second night here, but Lee has the engine apart and that's our excuse, if anyone asks. We never presumed to stay on this dock past sunup before and thus didn't know there's a gem of a little city just beyond the park. Tonight just happens to be Girl's Night Out in the schedule of Xmas events. And a boat with two women just docked next to us! Too bad I cut Lee's hair-he insisted, after being called mam one too many times; it was the last "hon" that really did it. He had his turn this morning, visiting the bakery. I found a second hand clothing store and many art galleries. and a fashion show to go to tonight. Lee decided to do a boat repair and had many sidewalk superintendents, one of whom gave him a ride to the auto parts store.

I skipped over our bike exploration at Cumberland Island, our Thanksgiving at St Mary's, a visit with CLOD friends (Cruisers Living On Dirt) in St Augustine, and a second Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle in Port Orange, FL to get here. This will be like facing the back of the boat viewing where we've been, funny how different that perspective is from facing forward.

Cumberland Island was just a dingy ride away from our anchorage and we spent a full day hiking and bicycling around.

I thought a photo of the distant horses in a field was the best I could do, until I managed to sneak up on one in the middle of the road on the ride back. I thought I was sneaking, until I got as close as I wanted to be and elicited no response. These may be wild horses but they have adapted nicely to the camera toting tourists.

Someone said 91 boats were at St Mary's for Thanksgiving. There was room for all, except at around three each afternoon, when tide and current put our boat on a collision course for its nearest neighbor. Luckily, we were on board to save their shiny new boat.

The flyer said informal gatherings every night at Seagles Bar, starting about Sunday, 11/22. We didn't join in until Wednesday. We got there Tuesday and cooked our personal Thanksgiving dinner aboard, the new oven doing justice to a six pound chicken complete with dressing. My cousin Linda and her sailor husband Wayne moved aboard the next day, great to have family for the holidays.Too bad they froze, picture of them sitting in a park swing wrapped in a blanket they were grateful to find in their car.

Seagles Hotel, Restaurant and bar opened their space and provided turkeys and ham for hundreds of cruisers, who provided the rest. Our friends on Shangrila went over early and set up a table in the beautiful dining room for all six of us, complete with centerpiece and placecards.

Friday was the swap meet "Treasures of the Bilge".

We got rid of two anchors and acquired two folding bicycles to replace our rusty ones.

This time of year is perfect for events-we got to see the decorations at night in St Augustine, walking around the old town with our friends. The next day we walked over to a large arts and crafts fair. The only problems with this stop were the canons they kept firing over the anchorage from the fort and the malfunctioning Bridge of Lions. It didn't open from 3 to 6 the first day due to some sort of electrical malfunction. The next afternoon at three we anxiously waited for it to open. Again it didn't, this time because of a protester with a walker who refused to leave. They finally removed her and we have yet to find out the rest of the story from our friends who watched the whole thing from land. This merits lots of room in my story since, if they didn't get it open, we would have had TO GO OUT IN THE OCEAN.
But, before I had to go up there and throw a woman with a walker off the bridge, they took care of it and we made it through and on to the anchorage at Fort Matanzas. We dingied in at 5:20 and were told we had to leave at 5:30, just about enough time for what was left of Fort Matanzas.

Next stop was Thanksgiving #3 at my aunt and uncle's house. We slept in a real bed and took long showers and watched CNN and played dominoes. Now we're only a day and a half from our parking place at Doris's dock where we'll leave the boat and head home for Xmas.

There, I'm all caught up.