In St. Augustine, we wandered through the restored "old" section of the downtown area. This section was full of small shops offering various craft goods, trendy clothes (i.e. not practical on a sailboat) and novelty items. It was interesting to wander through. Our shopping, however, seems confined to grocery stores, hardware stores or marine stores. Whenever we look at an interesting trinket, we have to stop and figure out where it could go on a boat. The lack of space keeps down the spontaneous purchases as something has to come off to make room. We also had a great tour through a working Spanish village as it was set up when St. Augustine was founded. Apparently St. Augustine was not a desirable place to be sent. It was basically swamp land with only one redeeming feature - an underground fresh water stream. It was close to the surface where ships could replenish their water supply. Many of the buildings were original and volunteers were cooking, woodworking and blacksmithing using original techniques as much as possible. One of the problems they have is learning how the settlers actually made things. A lot has been written about the people but very little about how they actually built something.

The weather looked good so we headed out on Tuesday for Daytona Beach. This was a long day as we traveled against the current for the full day losing about 1 to 2 knots of speed. We traveled along the Palm Coast. This area consists of a narrow channel with mega-homes along the sides. It is amazing to see the number of these massive homes, with landscaped yards, screened in outdoor patios and swimming pools, docks, etc.

At Daytona Beach, we went to a marina as a cold front was due and the anchorage was exposed. This was a modern marina with floating docks, not pylons that you have to figure out how to grab onto. Best of all, it was a short walk to a small cafe that advertised a breakfast special. Now I am a breakfast person. I love to make and eat breakfast and, occasionally, go out for breakfast. So the next morning, off we went for our first breakfast out on this trip. After breakfast, we wandered along the downtown streets and ended up picking up tree-ripened oranges from a firm that specializes in shipping oranges all over the US. We actually talked to the owner for awhile as he was also a boater. It is amazing how many people look at us and instantly ask if we are off a boat. I am not sure what all the clues are - maybe a slightly wind blown look, or maybe wrinkled clothing? It turned out to be a good move to stay in a marina as I came down with a mild case of flu the next day so we could stay on as I recuperated.