Memorial Day 2013 Report

Spanish Tallship.

Barco at slip 32 in St Augustine Municipal Marina

Perfect weekend in Northeast Florida... Temps were low eighties and the humidity was almost nonexistent!

I got underway about an hour and a half late, not bad for me since I get easily distracted. In this case I got 'joined' to a group on Facebook called HSL-84 Thunderbolts. I spent an hour eyeballing the photos and remembering my two years (I wasn't very nice back then) at that particular squadron and that is why I was late. I unjoined myself before anyone notices I was there!

Anyway, I rushed over and loaded the last bags and untied the boat from the dock. I headed North on the river to downtown and enjoyed a very uneventful ride in the bright sunshine. Right up until I was a hundred yards from the Railroad bridge, which closed in front of me.

Disappointment. Curse-words uttered to the bridge were not pretty but I was frustrated at the delay.

It was 20 minutes of doing circles in the river until the train had finally cleared which allowed me on my way, pushing the tide at slow speeds.

There is a lot of history with that bridge, the first railway bridge at that site (First bridge crossing the St Johns River!) was built by Henry Flagler's company to bring trains and passengers to St Augustine, which coincidently is my goal, too! This particular span was put in place in 1925 and looks it, believe me.

I passed a sailboat and then was pretty much alone on the River as I headed towards the ocean. The tide changed in my favor about a half hour later, and I now had the pleasure of trucking along at a blistering ten knot pace.

The high speed fun was snuffed out when I got to the Intracoastal Waterway, which has an opposite tide course and I slowed back to seven knots.

About half way down the ICW we got the following tide and sped back to ten knots, but that lasted about an hour. As I approached the St Augustine airport, we were beating back into the tidal current and slowed way down.

The Spousal Unit called me from the A1A Alehouse, wondering when I was going to finally arrive? I reported that it would be another hour or so, and that I was enjoying a very slow pace on the last leg to the Bridge of Lions.

I arrived at about six p.m. and was soon tied to the dock. We commenced the weekend with some Alaskan Salmon and a Simi Chardonnay. While enjoying our evening we were lucky to watch the entire launch and staging to orbit of a NASA satellite in the clear blue evening sky. It was the finest way to wrap up a day on Florida's First Coast.

We were up early on Saturday and enjoyed a fine brekky in the morning sun. As afternoon made it's way to our locality we decided to take the tourist hike about the old town. We were on George Street and ducked into a bar to avoid the Luddite Elitist Marching Mob™ as they protested Capitalism and its ability to feed the masses cheaply. Seems that Monsanto is evil and should be stopped at any cost, despite the fact there are hungry humans in third world nations who would like a chance to be fed by Monsanto. All this is amusing to me as I see well fed, showered and clean wealthy students walk by as they try to make the rest of us change our bad ways.
Youth is wasted on young people...

So I ducked into a bar and had a Belgian Beer.

Afterwards, we left and searched out some more tourist traps for small gew-gaws to place into our plastic bag as we waited for five o'clock and the Tradewind Bar's famous happy hour show, your host Mark Hart.

And we did.

Got back around eight p.m. and called it an evening an hour later.

Sunday morning had a bit of a gravity storm waiting for me, coffee and brekkies happened a bit after eight. We had a very lazy day watching the Pirate ship take tourists in and out, with a few sword fights on the adjacent dock in between missions. It was relaxing and invigorating to just sit in the shade and watch a busy marina do its holiday routine. We never left the Barco excepting to dump a couple small bags of trash.

A sober Crew hit beddy-byes at nineish to rest up for the trip home.

Up and at-em happened at zero six hundred, I cruised down the dock to use the marina showers while the Spousal Unit used our facilities. The tide was changing and we needed to get away rapidly to take advantage of the favorable currents. The result of which was that we made it home in about seven hours.

And we did get to see some Manatees and dolphins!

Later On: But of course, the Railroad Bridge closed as we were approaching downtown. No curses this time, we had been lucky to have the tides with us and it was a most beautiful day. We'll take the good deals and minimize the small inconveniences that are meaningless in the long run, right?

Now, the dreaded photos...

Bridge of Lions and look: a Spanish Tall Ship is docked at Municipal Marina!

Intracoastal near St Augustine

Low Tide

I have seen 'Monkey's Uncle' in the ICW every year since 2000. 

Fishin' in da ditch.

Lonely stretch of ICW

ICW at Ponte Vedra and Palm Valley

More of that fishin'.

Not good head work to tow your dinghy, especially when it gets bumpy at times.

Heading North while I go South...

Nice lookin' cruising boat

This has been there for years. Looks like a candidate for  salvage.

Thanks for the wake...

Heading North, too.

Jet skiers like to jump the wakes.

An Uninhibited Island

St John's Bluff

Cool name for a cargo vessel.

El Yunque

I think the Owner of the NFL Jaguars uses this boat.

Yep. Dames Point Bridge.

Nice homes on St Johns River.

I spoke to this tug on VHF. Monitor needed me out of the way while they anchored a barge.

Listen to tugs on VHF channel 10.

Where the Toyotas come to America.

Downtown Jax bridges.

Jax Fire and Rescue boat.

Tradewinds to the left and Legion at the big intersection by Bridge of Lions.

Monument in front of Legion Hall

Looks Legit...

Ronny's picture guards the men's.

Nice lady who got to watch the show and stay unattached.

Woo Girls!

Our Host, Mark Hart. "That's right folks, this is the drinking part of the song..."

Tony and crew from Tampa.

Waiting for something...

View out our starboard side

80 foot Huckins

Crew of Black Raven. They look like they have fun!

"Arrgh, now be givin' me your ticket..."

For Bruce and Buck; Eyeball Liberty

Heading North at 0645

Manatees

Back at the Club by two p.m.

A party was held at the pool.

Underway in two hours.

It has been a very busy couple of weeks, putting everything right on the Barco. I got the side panels back on after 1730 yesterday, wrapping the whole thing up. Only one more bag and a cooler full of yacht club ice remain to place aboard then I start the Perkins 200's to begin the journey to St Augustine.  There is a tall ship down there and we can look forward to tourists and funny goings-on around the docks.

This trip will be solo. I invited a number of people to go but no one has the time on a Friday to do some boating. Conversation will likely be as one way as normal but there will be no one to fetch sandwiches or drinks while grunting monosyllabic replies to my eloquent utterances.  SWWBO will meet Barco in St. Augustine after work.

I saw this t-shirt on the internet and purchased two. I will advertise and plug for any wrestling federation (Like the WWF!) that is cuter and obviously more adept at prying the money from the rubes than the U.S. based World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Yep. Some foreign outfit has figured out how to get them Chinese Wrestling Yuan by getting Pandas to TV-wrestle using illegal moves and foreign objects in their trunks... I'm IN!

Could you imagine the economic growth/income that could be realized if you could get just ten percent of the Chinese population to watch and buy wrestling memorabilia from the WWF?

What would Gorilla Monsoon do? Buy Pandas...

It's going to be a good time on the water this weekend and while I am safely cruising about I will carry in my mind a gratitude for the sacrifices our troops and fellow citizens have made over the last 237 years that have enabled me to enjoy this good life.

Keep vigilant and watch out for the crooks in our government--don't let them make a mockery of our Americanism.

Love the Friday!

There has been a lot of motion in these parts over the past week. Mom J. Cat had her car repaired, I did a little cleaning of the Barco and read a couple books all the while performing my normal duties at the house. So it has been a week of doing.

The pay off is a wine dinner tonight, five courses with decent wines for pairing, I am looking forward to this endeavor.

T-Minus seven days for the next underway period--I should be leaving the dock around 0900 and arrive at St Augustine City Marina sometime in the late afternoon. Our buddy Phil will be left behind to watch all night movies and perform cat petting tasks. Usually, the cats get a bowl of food set out but instead of leaving a bowl of food out for Phil, we will leave a keg. That's how we roll around here!

I tried to enroll in a Carpentry Course at the local Junior College. I got a response form one of the counselors telling me the courses are being dropped... Darn it! No hackey sack for me in the Quad after classes.

Some other stuff has come up and I will pass on any bits and pieces as necessary. Could be a very exciting summer and I look forward to reporting once I get all confirmations and go ahead authority.

No, there are no sailing trips as of this moment. But after Wine Tasting on Tuesday I did meet (and dine) with a California Gent who has just purchased a 62 foot trawler that needs to be delivered to the Left Coast. There may be a long journey in the future, but it would be early next year.

Sister Vessel to 'Skorcey', the subject of the possible move next year.

I have a few other irons in the fire concerning the next couple months before we take the big trip to the Southern Hemisphere, coming up this August. You, the reader, will be the third to know!

Appropriate Music Video;



Gettin' By, indeed.

Please to haz a good weekend!

Start a new week, stat!

Busy weekend, as usual. I was turning and burning with the wood refinishing project all week and finally wrapped it up. I am completely sick of varnish and sand paper. The next project is using rubbing compound on the hull and topsides of the Barco to be followed by Collinite Wax. No looking forward to that little project at all but it needs to happen before we cruise to St Augustine.

But first, this morning I have to take Mom's car to the shop for repairs/adjustments. I shall be on pins and needles this afternoon waiting for word on what needs to be done to make the Chrysler right.

Here is a report on the weekend's activities after I slopped on the last of nine coats of varnish, Saturday:

Really looking better now with all that varnish drying!

So after I was reaching the end of the obvious railings, I remembered to do the steps on the ladder, which had been unfinished for the past few years and desperately needed attention-- at the last minute.

The steps were sanded smooth and varnished with six coats.

Sunday was too nice a day to waste. So we took a road trip in the family wagon to Ponce de Leon Inlet (south of Daytona) cruising down the famous state road, A1A.

Only the coolest road in America! 

Yes, I know and love Highway 1 in California. But there are more beachside stops and sights to see along Florida's Atlantic coastal avenue. And we don't get the earthquakes and landslides into the ocean... (Honorable Mention for another Florida Coastal Road, Highway 98 which follows the Gulf)

I first got wind of this mysterious road from a Jimmy Buffett Album which bore a similar name...

I saw this album cover in the mid eighties and decided on which state I wanted to live; Buzzed on beer by a palm shaded beach.

                 

We did not intend to go as far as Ponce Inlet, it just happened that way. Five bucks admission gets you in to the small park.

Btw: I did climb the stairs to the top! (Whew...!)

Please to click to biggify;

I saw this sign, half way up the spiral ladder...

The view from the top of the actual Ponce Inlet. There is a Farraday Cage to protect the Rubes from lightning and from jumping off...

The roadside tiki shacks were all packed up with no parking, so we had to wait until we arrived at St Augustine Beach before stopping for a couple hot dogs and something cool to drink.

There was a massive infestation of those ill-named Lovebugs, so I had to wash the car before putting it away.

Still gets looks when we cruise the roads!

Tucked away next to our other Deutsche 'Wagen

There is some work to be done so I will be at the boat, shortly.

See you soon!