December-2 2006

December 2006

Another little blast of winter was to the north as we left Jekyll Island for Florida. We the renewed warmth and sunshine, planning to stop in St Augustine, south of Jacksonville in Florida. The river estuaries on this stretch are shallow and careful attention has to be given to the state of the 2.5 metre (8 foot) tides. We managed to avoid touching the bottom and found deserted anchorages amongst the salt marshes. As ever, the bird life is amazing and we spotted flocks of white pelicans. You can find this species in Yellowstone National Park as well! Instead of flopping vertically onto the fish like the Brown Pelican they fish while swimming.
Commercial traffic is uncommon but often ungainly. We encountered a dredger being moved north in a wide river with a narrow winding deep water channel. The skipper was friendly and helpful as we moved to avoid him.

The VHF grapevine works efficiently all down the ICW and we learned from friends that there was a good marina just north of St Augustine. We set out to stay for a week while the next cold front passed but liked it so much that we booked in to stay for a month. This neatly covers Christmas and the new year. There are loan cars which can be used for shopping and the only down side are the Boat-tailed Grackles! These strangely named black birds are members of the thrush family and they gather in the evenings to socialise and spread guano. You just have to keep frightening them off for about 20 minutes and then they vanish to roost somewhere.
St Augustine is the oldest European settlement in the USA. The Spanish were here first in the 1600s but the area has been occupied by the French, British and Spanish again before becoming part of the USA. The city gates remain but have been modernised a couple of times.

St Augustine was subject to pirate raids - Francis Drake amongst others - so the Spanish royalty commanded that a stone fort be built overlooking the river inlet. Trouble was there was no stone to be found anywhere. Finally they discovered a soft, loosely compacted mass of seashells and lime in beds on the barrier island. It looked like stone so the royal family need never know any different and it could be cut into blocks with a knife.
They were not to know but it dried into hard blocks which completely swallowed cannon balls without cracking or splitting. The material was called coquina and the fort was never conquered. It became the common local building material but is now protected because it is endangered.
The fort is a National Monument and much work is being carried out to preserve it. When atop the battlements you can easily see why it was so commanding and successful. Many beautiful bronze Spanish guns and mortars remain. Well worth the entrance fee.

We spent three days being tourists in St Augustine itself but it has become a bit of a tourist trap generally and we were disappointed to see it has been invaded by beggars, many of whom have drug and alcohol problems. The city is about to make most of this illegal but that won’t really solve the issues underneath it all. Poverty and deprivation remain major issues over here...