St Augustine to Daytona Beach

Christopher and I spent two full days in St Augustine, 11/8 and 11/9.  It really is a fascinating place. I am not sure what Christopher did with his time, but I did four walking tours of the city.  The architecture is pretty striking, whether or not you believe it to be kitschy in the extreme.

Charleston is a beautiful city with many magnificent homes.  In that town most buildings have been restored.  In St Augustine on the other hand, most of the historical work has been reconstruction on the original foundations.  The reconstructions are all based on original drawings, paintings and prints, so are faithful to their period.  St George Street is the thoroughfare that the preponderance of tourists take the time to walk down.  Unfortunately, its historical aspects are concealed by rampant commercialism.  Almost every reconstruction is now a boutique.  The really worthwhile sites are more off the beaten track and most tourists see them from little trolley trains with guides.  Anyway, the city is very photogenic.  My problem is deciding which few photographs to include.

In the late eighteenth century St Augustine was probably just another coastal town.  That is until Henry Flagler, a partner of John D Rockefeller, discovered it.  He quickly turned it into a winter resort for the rich and famous, and all of the reconstructions and restorations soon followed.  In addition to two fantastical hotels he also built three churches for different denominations.

	This is one of the Flagler Churches.  He built it in memoriam to his daughter on the occasion of her untimely death en route to St Augustine.
This cross is over 200 feet tall and dominates the sky line as one enters the Matanzas River and St Augustine, whether from the ICW or from sea.  It was erected to mark the spot of the first catholic mass held by the Spaniards that had been sent by Philip II to bring Florida under Spanish control.  On the grounds of the sanctuary no mention is made of the fate of the French Huguenots a few miles up the coast.  The The same soldiers that celebrated mass here also massacred the Huguenots, all in the name of God and country.
	This is now Flagler College.  It was originally one of Flagler's hotels in the city.  In the earlier web posting I drew your attention to what I thought were church spires.  It turns out that they are towers on the the rear of this building.
For a couple of hundred years this building served as the seat of government during the British rule and in the second Spanish period.
	Another Flagler building, also once a hotel, now houses the Lightner Museum and city government.

In my second attempt to take advantage of the weather fronts Christopher and I decided to sail the 54 nautical miles from St Augustine to New Smyrna on 11/10.  During the night a cold front was supposed to come through, bringing with it some wind from the west and northwest.  We weighed anchor with the rise of the sun and headed out to the Atlantic Ocean.  The wind was indeed from the NW, but never broke 8 knots apparent.  In order to move us along at 6 knots on a broad reach, what we needed in order to get into Ponce de Leon Inlet and New Smyrna during daylight, we need 12-15 knots apparent.  We ended up by motorsailing all day.  It was a pretty smooth ride since the slightly off shore wind flattened out the waves.  New Smyrna, FL turned out to be a bust as a layover. 

Coming in the Ponce Inlet there are two marinas to the north, but they are in a tricky, unmarked channel.  We gave them a pass.  The cruising guide suggests an anchorage off the Coast Guard Station to the south of the inlet.  This looked very unpromising so we gave it a pass.  Of the next two marinas, at the Coronado Beach bridge, one was full and the other had no navigation aides across the shoal areas.  We continued on to the Sea Harvest Marina.  When we called them on VHF 16 the local sea tow franchise answered and directed us to VHF 11.  He then gave us some useless information.  Upon approaching the marina we were directed by a shout to go around the sea wall.  Once around it we found no one to direct us to a place to tie up and no obvious place to do so, so we gave this one a pass.  Once again we continued on, our situation growing more desperate as the sun sank in the sky.  The New Smyrna Yacht Club refused to help us with a slip since we are not members of an American Registry of Yacht Clubs organization.  We then called the municipal marina on the cell phone and on VHF 16 and got no answer.  A quick look at the cruising guide showed that going south was not the solution; we'd have to go over 30 nm to find a place for the night.  As the sun began to touch the horizon we tied up at one of the two docks on the city park on the west end, north side of the New Smyrna Causeway Bridge.  Even though the docks, big enough for a couple of boats our size, have signs saying that tying up is limited to 4 hours no one came along to chase us along.

On 11/11 we motored back up the ICW to Daytona Beach where we will stay until Tuesday, 11/14, when we will go down to Titusville.  We'll leave the boat in Titusville for w few days while we go to Disney World to meet Maria and Diana.