Bangarang sailed north from Ponce de Leon Inlet and we are now moored on a ball in St Augustine's Municipal Marina, north of the Bridge of Lions, with a fabulous view of two bridges and the historic downtown area.
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Mooring ball: a good choice over anchoring since there
is a very strong current here, and only $20 per night |
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The St Augustine Municipal Marina and
the historic downtown in the background |
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| The King of Lions Bridge |
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The King of Lions Bridge opens every half hour to let
boats with less clearance pass, like Bangarang |
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| A view off our bow |
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| Bangarang just motored under the Bridge of Lions |
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| A few other boats, almost all sailboats, around us in the mooring field |
We're settled in here in St Augustine, probably for a couple of weeks. St Augustine on our first night in town...
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A1A Ale Works, a microbrewery across from our harbor,
has good food and beer. Across from the harbor, it's
popular with the sailors |
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| Ponce de Leon, of course |
And, no, I'm not misspelling "Perfection" in the title of this blog entry. "Phrfection" is the name of the boat Kent raced on last night.
One of the many things Kent and I like about living aboard and cruising on Bangarang is meeting new people. We did a little touristy shopping downtown and, completely by chance, we met Lisa, who is the current coordinator for the Cruisers' Net here in St Augustine, an organization that brings cruisers together to socialize and network. Lisa alerted us to the Cruisers' Net radio short-wave broadcast each morning at 8:00 and a Facebook page to keep everyone abreast of weather and social events.. She also invited us to their bi-weekly Friday nighter at the nearby San Sebastián Winery. We didn't know exactly what to expect, but figured we'd at least get some tasty wine. It turned out we had a great time and met a lot of other sailors there, many of which live on their boats like we do. They come from all different backgrounds--young, old, single, married, other, etc--but have boating in common. We were the only new people there that night and we received a very warm welcome.
After hearing that Kent had raced in several Mac Races and a Bermuda Race, one of the women there, Madelin ("with no e") invited him to participate in a moonlight sailing race the following evening. We met Madelin at the St Augustine Yacht Club for a brief skippers' meeting, to see if any of the skippers needed crew. They didn't, so he crewed on Madelin's boat, the Phrfection. The boat is a 1980's Beneteau First Class 10, made for racing. Kent was assigned to trimming the mainsail. Phrfection came in first, ahead of the other boats by four minutes! Of course, with Kent on the crew!
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| Moonlight for the race |
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| Madelin's boat, the Phrfection |
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| We met the crew, all very nice |
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Kent had no idea what to expect, since he's never been on
this boat before, but they won and he had a great time |
We've made some new friends, have a supper date on our calendar, and have been invited to join the yacht club. We're really enjoying our cruising network and friends.
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I had to include a picture of this poor boat, in storage
and obviously neglected for some time, with
wild vines growing up the mast! |
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