St. Augustine to Jacksonville

Our friends Darrel and Beth caught up to us in St. Augustine so we reserved the marina courtesy car . After walking around the parking lot for a while, we found it ! (see the courtesy car parking sign in front !)

After running errands to Home Depot, Target, West Marine and the grocery store, we stopped to tour the fort at St. Augustine. This was built in the 1600's and although the fort was never taken in battle, it was under the jurisdiction of first the Spanish, then England, then back to the Spanish, then the Confederate States and finally to the US.

This is a picture of the fort overlooking the harbor.

One evening when we were sitting in the boat, this boat attempted to dock across from us. It was so windy though, that they couldn't bring it into the dock even with both bow and stern thrusters. I was really relieved when they went further into the harbor. That night, we had winds of 30-33 mph with gusts up to 50. I was afraid that had that boat been across from us, it would have pulled all the cleats off the dock !

What a change in the landscape--no more mangroves. Just sawgrass along the waterway.

But there were still beautiful homes.

Entering the St. John's River, the boats were even larger. Jacksonville, is about 8 miles up this river off the intra-coastal waterway.

Although I couldn't find any sign that this was a lighthouse, it's architecture suggested it was one. And it was pretty much at the entrance to the St. John's River.

A little further down the river was this suspension bridge with a freighter approaching.

Passing under the bridge, we saw the workers, painting it ! What a job!

Here are some homes along the river and a weird looking freighter flying a Panama flag. Apparantly Jacksonville is a big seaport for shipping cars. There were many container ships too.