We spent three nights at the marina in St. Augustine. We originally booked 2, but as usual, 2 is never enough. They day you arrive is always spent getting there, getting settled, showering, cleaning up the boat, etc. Day 2 ends up rushed, provisioning, trying to site see a bit, and then the next day you pretty much just wake up and get ready to leave. So we extended one more day to give us a full day to site see and a full day to provision, which is a much better balance.

So when we got in, we did the showers, cleaned the boat, topped off the water tanks, etc. That evening we walked through the town to enjoy the christmas lights. We didn't really get any pictures of the lights, but they are really something to see. We went out for a nice Italian dinner, expensive, but beautiful to be sitting outside enjoying the atmosphere of the place.

Second day was our touristy day, went over to the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument and toured the fort. Lots of neat history here as the fort changed hands between the Spanish and British and back again. We took a walk down St. George Street which is packed full of interesting shops and places. We stopped at the Medieval Torture Museum. This was a fair bit more gruesome than I had anticipated and Theone and Aria bailed. Maybe not fun for the whole family, but I did find it morbidly fascinating. They also had a tiny art exhibit, where people make ultra miniature art that you need a microscope to actually see. Items that fit inside the eye of a needle for example. It was a nice thing to view and take your mind off the whole torture part.

And finally our third day was spent mostly researching and provisioning. I downloaded explorer charts for the Bahamas and we started really planning our route, etc. We made a long trek to refill our propane, and get some groceries at a mexican grocer.

And then that was about it. We could easily spend a lot more time in St. Augustine, it's a very beautiful spot, and it would have made a lot of sense to pick up a mooring ball there which is a good deal and gives you access to the all the amenities we had at the marina.

However, we still want to get south, and so we made plans to keep moving. Initially we intended to go down the ICW from here, but a really nice weather window was forming for us to just make a big overnight passage and so we finally decided to do that after much deliberation. We'll plan to leave tomorrow morning, and sail overnight to arrive in Fort Pierce the day after if all goes well.