Aboard s.v. Trudy Mae

We've spent the week provisioning and stowing in preparation for moving on from St. Augustine. As you can imagine, after being in one place for a month some of the lockers seem to have emptied themselves...at least partly. The winter clothes are now stowed where the summer clothes used to be and the hats and mitts are put away.

Wednesday we rode out to Walmart (8 mile round trip) for the heavy stuff...diet coke and wine. The trip also included a stop at the Sailor's Exchange for a new snubber to replace the rubber bungee used on the bow line that snapped during the storm and a haircut for Doug. Thursday we rode out to the Winn Dixie (4 miles round trip) for canned and dry goods and Friday another trip to Winn Dixie for the perishables. We should be getting thinner from all this exercise, but if we are we don't see it. Maybe at least we are getting to be in better shape.

We've been planning to go to O'Steen's for dinner before we leave St Augustine because of it's reputation with the locals as having the best shrimp in town...better than all of the fancy restaurants across the bridge. We decided we'd better go before we ran out of time...so we decided Tuesday night was the night. The restaurant is only a couple of blocks from the marina so we headed down the street. About half way there we were passed by fire trucks with lights flashing and sirens blaring. We joked that now that we finally got around to going to O'Steen's for dinner the place was on fire...so sure enough the trucks all stopped in front of the restaurant. As it turned out the restaurant wasn't on fire. We aren't really sure why they were there - they didn't seem to be doing anything but standing around. Maybe they were just there to pick up their takeout order. Anyway we "registered" at the window and sat outside on the bench waiting for our table (they don't take reservations). The place was hopping and the food was tasty and we more than filled out monthly quota for fried food as fried seafood is their specialty...mahi-mahi, shrimp, clams and hush puppies with 6 side dishes to boot...and dessert. We sort of waddled home.

Friday we went for a dinghy ride up Hospital Creek (past the giant cross in the Fountain of Youth park) to check out the anchorage there. On the way back we came around the island which put us north of the inlet. We'd remembered from our arrival that there was a shoal in the harbour that you had to go around, so Doug took a wide girth around the island. Once we thought we were out far enough Doug turned and headed across the harbour. Thinking we were past water shallow enough to cause the dinghy problems, I was enjoying the scenery when Doug said to me..."can you see the bott..." Before he finished the word the prop grazed the bottom. We were in water maybe a foot deep...in the middle of the harbour. Doug pulled the outboard up and used an oar to punt us to deeper water. When we were in about 2 feet of water Doug put the outboard down again and away we went. So now I can say I've been "aground" in the ICW.

Friday night we had another nice visit at the St Augustine Yacht Club. We met some nice folks, and talked to a few we'd met the week before...and had some interesting conversations about healthcare...