A rainbow extending above our mast at the St. Augustine Municipal Maria.

Throughout our summer in Marathon, we began looking to relocate our main port of call to St. Augustine. We had spent several weeks in St. Augustine while traveling the east coast and fell in love with this historical and active city. From the historic "old town district" of stores, hotels, museums,shops and restaurants to the beautiful beaches on Anestasia Island, we wanted to spend more time exploring life in this part of North Florida. St. A is the oldest town in the US and will be celebrating it's 450th anniversary in 2015.

I found a good weather window in mid-August and arranged with Capt. Bill Olson to help me move the boat from Marathon to St. A. We left on a Thursday afternoon and motor sailed the Hawk Channel to Ft. Lauderdale arriving just after sunrise on Friday morning. Spent Friday afternoon and night at the Bahia Mar Marina where Capt Bill's girlfriend joined us as crew. We left before dawn on Saturday morning for Ft. Pierce. After exiting the Port Everglades Inlet we picked up the gulf stream current and sailed in excess of 12 kts to the Ft. Pierce Inlet and Harbortown Marina. Spent the night at Harbortown ( hot showers, good dinner and a hot breakfast) and left Sunday late morning for St. A. Arrived St. A. on Monday morning. The overall journey of just under 400nm was one of the most enjoyable sails I have ever experienced

Cathy and Sassy drove to St. A and we began to settle in to our new base of operation. We have discovered most of the good eating places and best of all I discovered the homemade peach ice cream at Kilwin's (with Dominica hot fudge topping). We are attending Grace UMC next to the Flagler College campus. Grace was built by Henry Flagler in 1881 in authentic Spanish Renaissance style architecture. The church is about a 10 minute walk from our marina.

The beaches on Anestasia Island are approximately a 4.5 mile bike ride from the marina. We do take Sassy in the car for late afternoon beach walks. St. Augustine Beach is a very wide white sand beach that is very clean with excellent shower facilities for both us and Sassy Most weekends have plenty of unique kites flying along with well organized beach volleyball tournaments.

The city is host to weekly concerts both at the city's amphitheater and Constitution Park in the town square. Flagler College is located in the heart of downtown and brings a lot of added cultural opportunities to the community.

In Oct we had an insurance policy survey on Moonlight Shadow which highlighted several significant maintenance items and a few upgrades that we needed to complete. We hauled the boat at a local boat yard in early November and Sassy and I drove back to TX. Cathy was having some major digestive problems at the time and she flew back a week earlier to begin some testing. All testing came out positive and she has been correcting her problems by diet.

We had been planning a Thanksgiving holiday trip to TX in late November to visit family and friends, get our annual medical checkups and tests and pickup needed supplies and items for the boat. We were then going to be back in St. A to celebrate the Christmas holiday. St. A does a spectacular job of decorating for the holidays. The "old historic district" displays over 10 million holiday lights that bring a lot of joy and memories to so many people at this festive time of the year.

Well, we not only left early for TX due to the boat challenges and Cathy's health issues but our stay was extended through the Christmas holiday. While Sassy was running and playing at Brian and Elisa's house she tore her ACL that resulted in another knee surgery. She tore the other ACL a year earlier. After surgery and a successful rehab we returned to St. A in early January. We were still able to see all the fabulous Christmas decorations in St. A as the city keeps them in full display until the end of January.

We had a busy and active winter enjoying the sights and sounds of this most enjoyable city. It has been cooler than normal (as was most of the country) and we have worn more jackets, fleeces, caps and gloves than we ever expected being in Florida. We had an occasional warm day or two every now and then to keep our spirits hopeful for a return to spring sailing.

We have been fortunate to meet many new dock mates and friends in the boating community while here. We have been blessed throughout our cruising to be able to share life with some very special people. Our dock mates David and Janine and Ed and Michele have been fun to get to know and share a meal while exchanging life's stories and events.

We have now been in St. A for seven months and Cathy and I have been hearing the call of adventure for South Florida, the Bahamas and the Florida Keys. We are leaving this Saturday for a week to 10 day cruise to South Florida, reprovision in Ft. Lauderdale and then off to the Bahamas where we will be joined by family and friends during our approximate 2 month Bahama adventure. After returning to Ft. Lauderdale (sometime in June), we will head to Marathon in the Keys. We are looking forward to spending some time relaxing with our great friends Bruce and Bobbi. Then sometime in July we will work our way back up the Florida coast for a summer docking back in beautiful St. A before peak hurricane season.

So follow us on our new blog, Bahama Bound with weekly updates (possibly/hopefully).

Blessings Mon.