Marineland Marina, St. Augustine, FL
We decided to stay another day at Marineland Marina to catch up the laundry, go to the Publix Grocery and general cleaning of the boat.

Ah, yes, one other fact about Marineland, This is a transition area for Florida vegetation. From here north you have marsh grass. From here south you have mangroves. University of Florida has a center here studying the environment and wildlife. So, factoids like that are just thrown out by the biology major dock masters and eco tour guides.

We didn’t go to the Marineland Dolphin Center as we had seen that last time, but there was a very animated girl from another boat that had gotten to swim with the dolphins! She was so excited and told us the dolphins’ names and that when she rubbed their backs they would blow water and air at her. The family was from Seattle and are living on their boat for about another year with two children. The few young families we see on boats have the nicest children who are getting an education that few children experience! They are, of course, home schooled by the parents with lots of interesting papers to write, journals to keep, as well as the normal math classes. The parents love having their kids with them and know how it will be when they get back home with children having schedules with sports and other activities. So, this together time is very important to the parents and kids.

We took the father of the young girl with us to Publix to get a few things and it was nice hearing his story about renting his house and knowing that in a year they would be back on land and this would all be over for them.
I
’ve had a few email exchanges with the Canadian family that sailed around the world for 5 years and then moved back into their house. The mom says everyone just got back into the groove and it’s almost like they didn’t even do the 5 year trip. She said she hadn’t been even able to grieve selling their boat.

It was a lovely afternoon and we decided to watch the sun go down from the fly bridge with a cocktail. It was the most spectacular sunset of the trip. I’m having a very hard time picking out which shot to use. For about 15 to 30 minutes AFTER the sun goes down the sky rapidly changes. I shot 160 pictures. Got to throw them all away except for ONE!

Today’s picture is the ONE I kept.