April 6-8 -- Three Lay Days in St. Augustine -- Zero Miles

Laundry, cleaning and shopping, the usual, except for the shopping which we did by dink to a Publix less than half a mile from a dinghy dock which was about 2.5 miles north of our mooring and on the other side of the shoal infested harbor. We took Lene's i-Navx with us and ended at a boat ramp where Arnis met us with his truck and trailer, took our dink and gave us and our five bags of groceries a ride back to the marina. Two days later he picked us up on the street in front of the marina, drove us back to the boat ramp and launched the dink so we could drive her home to the marina and later to our boat. Hopefully, the gash is history. He said he put a patch on the inside (how the heck is that done) and then a larger one on the outside in addition.

But life is more than chores and repairs. We visited the Villa Zorayda, built by a wealthy Boston man in the 1880s to resemble the Alhambra palace in Grenada Spain, where he had traveled and fallen in love with things Moorish. Of course it is much smaller than the original but its rooms have the same names including a two story central atrium, like Viscaya in Coconut Grove, a harem room with an overhanging window through which inhabitants could look out without being viewed. The house was stuffed with furnishings from throughout Europe and the Middle East, including a "cat rug" in which a mummy was found buried in a pyramid. The house later passed into the hands of a Mr. Mussalem, a respected dealer in antique Oriental rugs and later became a hotel, speakeasy and gambling club. I just loved the floor, composed of square tiles that are each identical but arranged to form two patterns.

I walked to the Lighthouse and back, about four miles round trip. But I could not climb the  219 steps to its light room which was closed for painting. So we were given a guided tour by Don, a retiree who seemed to love his subject. Much of his talk had to do with the work done there and the processes of the preservation of parts of sunken ships, as was done the The Vasa in Stockholm (Blog June 2014) and about a wooden boat building project.

We toured the home that the two lighthouse keeper families and their assistant shared and I thought of the similarities of the US and Scottish lighthouse services. The lighthouse is on Anastasia Island and I checked out the St. Augustine YC, on its eastern side, behind the barrier island, while there.

I visited two historic houses, first the Pena-Peck house, built as a Spanish style open home around a courtyard with shutters but no windows behind them for the Spanish Tax Collector, Senor Pena. After a second story was built in the English style, it became the home and office of Dr. Peck of Whitestone, New York and his family. His decendents lived there until 1931 when the last died childless and the house was given to the city. My docent there was a Ms. Policer,

who had moved back to this area after her husband retired from his work in California. She mentioned that Dr. Peck had lived in the Ximenos-Fatios House, a few blocks away (everything is only a few blocks away in the center of this historic town). I had planned that as my next stop and learned that the house had been one of several boarding houses that competed with hotels in the mid nineteenth century. They were run by women and served nine course dinners as well as multi course lunches and breakfasts. The two names represent the names of the first and last owners during the period that was of interest to the preservationists and in reading the placards I learned that one Menorcan (I would have said Minorcan) woman whose surname was Policer, had married a man who had built or owned this house early in its history. So maybe, my docent at the first house was of Menorcan descent and has roots in St. Augustine that go way back, which she did not mention. Another thing: tourists did not arrive by railroad, car or boat (or airplane); they took a steamer up the St. Johns River past Jacksonville and then by stagecoach, east from that river to St. Augustine.

One attraction that I did not visit was El Galleon, from Spain, which will be here until june and plans to visit Philadelphia next. To get under the Bridge of Lions, she had to trim her spars fore and aft and squeeze through with inches to spare.

Anchor is "catted"

We had two good restaurant meals, the first at Columbia,

which we had visited in 2012, and the second at Collage, a newer place which was one of the few "fine dining" experiences we have treated ourselves to on this trip. Excellent service by well trained, well dressed, efficient, lovely, young ladies and interesting imaginative food. In New York such a dinner would have cost $100 per person; here it was half that. In hindsight the two meals share one thing in common: local spicy smoky red peppers. At Columbia they were stuffed with chorizo and spanish ham and baked under an almond sauce and at Collage they were pureed with carrot in a soup.
And we had a pumpkin/mango pancake breakfast

aboard ILENE with Earl and Kathy of s/v Seeker, friends of Dean and Susan who introduced us to each other in St. Augustine on the way south. One of my favorite feelings is the joy I get when I introduce friend A to friend B and they hit it off. Thanks, Dean.

St Augustine still has several attractions that, even after three extended visits here, we have not seen.
Sunset from our mooring.