December 2006
St Augustine is not only famous for its early history but also because of the 19th century developments brought about by oil and railroad tycoon Henry Flagler. He built two huge luxury hotels and bought a third when the owner went bankrupt. He also built the east coast railroad from New York to bring tourist and trade to Florida.
Other rich people settled here for the winter and Franklin Smith built the Villa Zorayda for this purpose. It is a tenth scale copy of one wing of the Alhambra Palace in Grenada, Spain.
One of Flagler’s hotels is now the local college and another is one of many local museums. The college dining room features priceless Tiffany stained-glass windows which have had to be protected by polycarbonate on both sides to protect them from damage.

The Zorayda Palace
A close up of coquina stone - pronounced 'cockeena'
This house was built and modified by the owner of the largest citrus grove in the area - he sold land for Flagler to build his hotels
The entrance square to the old Ponce de Leon Hotel
The second Flagler hotel - now the Lightner Museum
Detail of the frog fountain outside Flagler College
Part of the frontage of Flagler College - Edison designed and built three generators for the hotel before there was any for the locals
How about this 8 inch jellyfish!
Christmas dolphin
Our Christmas Tree
The house built by the carpenter working for Henry Flagler on the hotels - mmm...
House in old St Augustine Village
Our snowman with friends
Sailboat decoration

Another interesting museum was St Augustine Village. This was a city block preserved by an individual who occupied it. The buildings date back to the 18th century and contain collected period artifacts.
It is a really quiet and beautiful corner of a busy city and houses some picture galleries too. The gardens have fountains and sculpture collections too.

We had some unusual visitors to the marina in the form of jellyfish. They were up to about 10 inches in diameter and globe shaped. They swam quite fast using the purple frill at the base of the globe and the structures hanging below looked quite rigid. We did not test to see whether these structures could sting humans! Apparently they are quite numerous during some seasons.

Preparations for Christmas are well advanced here. Our decorations are up inside the boat along with our Christmas tree - fibre-optic LED lighting and 9v battery!

It has been a great pleasure looking for appropriate ornaments with a nautical theme. We do worry about the snowman though - some mornings he has his arm around the nutcracker and on others the nutcracker is drunkenly sprawled across him... We have not even started to think how we will store all this stuff. Maintenance on the boat progresses and we have updated and improved our fishing gear ready for the Bahamas in the new year. Can’t wait!!

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