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St. Augustine: Florida at last!

St. Augustine mooring field is very large

Arrived in St. Augustine, with the Spanairds close on our tail. Well, not exactly but back in 1565 it could have happened. St. Augustine is loaded with history and of course the famous Castillo de San Marcos. Constructed on the west bank of the Matanzas River ( part of the ICW) it was designed to hold 1,500 people.
After our off-the-ICW overnight trip from Savannah to the St John’s River inlet (Jacksonville is 20 miles up-river) we spent the night in another creek with several other boats and a pair of very hungry pelicans. They dove for fish so frequently that I had no trouble taking a picture, except the camera is so slow (or maybe it’s me) that out of 10 shots, 9 were great ones of the splash made as they dove in. Similar results photographing the dolphins.
This morning we made a short two hour trip into St. Augustine and picked up our first mooring of the trip in their brand new mooring field.
The weather is noticeably warmer – finally- and even at night the temperature doesn’t dip as much as it had even as far south as South Carolina.  Not sure about Georgia; we skipped right by it by traveling in the Atlantic from SC to FL.

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Arrived in Beaufort, SC

Sometimes we think we plan so carefully…  Everything must be planned, from weather to our daily route to diesel fill-ups to water fill-ups to head pumpouts to being able to receive UPS shipments & our mail.

Several days ago, we calculated we could arrive in Beaufort today ( this is pronounced BEW-fort as opposed to Beau (BOW)fort , NC), so we had our mail sent ahead to the Beaufort Post Office, held for General Delivery. This PO is one of the few Post Offices within walking distance of the waterfront.

Our first sign that things were off was the swing bridge just before Beaufort was late to open & all we heard were lots & lots of sirens.  When the bridge finally opened & we made it to the dock, we found out that no, Beaufort was not on fire, but that it was Veterans Day & there was a big parade in town!  Great we thought … but wait … isn’t Veterans Day a Federal holiday, as in Post Offices closed??  We have trouble enough keeping track of the day of the week, much less pending holidays!  Oh well, we’ll be first in line tomorrow morning at 8:30!
Lori immediately declared that breakfast in town before the PO stop would be a good thing to do- the cook always looks for a way out!!
We didn’t get to see much of Beaufort due to: lunch, taking the courtesy car to get propane tanks filled and a grocery stop, laundry, washing the boat, paying bills and updating the blog. Always next time. The town is filled with lovely southern homes and the waterfront is beautiful- wooden porch-type swings and a view of the harbor.

Beaufort waterfront 2010

View of waterfront from restaurant back porch

Southern friendliness abounds; we enjoyed lunch at Plums,overlooking the waterfront. A query of our waitress as to a breakfast recommendation  and she had it- Blackstones- a block away. Perfect.
Our first impression of a Publix from our trips to Florida, remains as good as then. You get the feeling that the seafood person (in this case) really has a stake in the store and boy, she went out of her way to get us just what we wanted and offered all kinds of helpful info. So how y’all feeling up north there?