Wednesday, March 26, 2014...still here!

And I thought it was cold yesterday morning!  It was 41 degrees when our alarm went off at 7:00 am.  Neither of us wanted to get out from underneath our nice toasty covers.  We laid there for another hour thinking  the temperature would warm up.  Yeah right!  Finally I called the marina office and told them we were staying one more night and we’d be in to pay when it warmed up…  that’s not going to happen today.  The predicted high is 52 degrees!! 

I’ve been wanting to go over to the other side of the Matanza River and

visit the St. Augustine Lighthouse.   The dock master told us about a shuttle that would take us and it only cost $1 each way.  He told us to get it in front of the Red Train Depot which is directly in front of the marina.  Hey, this is going to be easy.  We went into their booth and were instructed to go to their main station about 8 blocks away.  To make a long story short, the gal led us on a wild goose chase.  All we had to do was wait for the Sunshine bus, which also stops in front of the Train Depot.  It only cost us 50 cents each way for seniors!   The driver told us that he would stop or drop off anywhere along his route.  While we waited we saw a horse and carriage.

   

We did have to walk about ¼ of a mile from A1A to the lighthouse and museum.  The St. Augustine Lighthouse is painted very similar to the Cape Hatteras Light.  It has the same black and white spiral but the top is painted red where Hatteras is black.  They have a wonderful display of lenses, light keepers’ skiffs, cannons, and other memorabilia they’ve been either given or excavated.   I was disappointed that we had to pay to climb the lighthouse but it also got us into the keeper’s house, trails, and other outbuildings.  We climbed 219 steps to the top.  What a great view.  In fact, we could see all the way west to the mooring field where Happy Hours II is moored, to the north is the Matanza Bay and Vilano Beach Bridge  and St. Augustine Inlet, and east is Salt Run and the Atlantic Ocean…..cool and breezy!

lighthouse store

side of light keepers' house

front of light keepers' house

skiff

another skiff

blooming flowers!

north to Vilano Beach Bridge

Mooring field to west

west to Salt Run & Atlantic

looking up the spiral stairs 

Old rudder

Alligator Farm 

We waited about an hour for the Sunshine bus to take us back to the marina.  Traffic was backed up by the Lyons Bridge so we didn’t get there until around 3:30.  Since we didn’t have lunch and our food supplies are low, we went back to Pizzalleys for their happy hour specials.  Back to the boat to grab our clean clothes and shower bags and then back to our boat.  Once again we’re planning on leaving tomorrow morning so we lifted our dinghy and motor.  Hopefully tomorrow will be the day to continue our trek north.