March 19, 2016 St. Augustine

Castillo De San Marco, St. Augustine, FL

Yesterday our new thermostat arrived via FedEx at 10:30 and Peter had it installed and the engine warmed up by 10:45.  The engine temperature was holding steady at 160ºF for several minutes, so we cast off our lines and headed out again. This time we didn’t make it one-half mile from the dock before the engine started overheating again. Peter shut down the engine before it got too hot and let it cool for 5 minutes. Meanwhile he turned Kite around and coasted back toward the marina.  By repeating the procedure of running the engine for 30 seconds and then letting it cool for 5 minutes, Kite made it back to the marina and tied off at the head of the nearest dock.

Checking the engine again, Peter discovered that the fresh-water cooling loop had no visible coolant in it, and he added 2 quarts of antifreeze to fill it up. Funny how an engine will overheat if it doesn’t have any cooling fluid in it.  We departed the marina for the last time at 11:40. This time, Kite’s engine heated up to 160º to 170º and stayed at this temperature for the next eight hours as we motored out the river and down the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW) to St. Augustine. The good news was that the delayed departure ensured that we had favorable current for most of the trip, and we made it in 8.25 hours.  Our prior best time was 9 hours, so this was a welcome benefit. The bad news was our late departure meant that we arrived after sunset and we had to find our mooring in the dark, which turned out to be rather easy.  We were secure at a mooring in St. Augustine harbor by 20:00.

We checked in with Ringle as we arrived, and agreed a plan to catch the 08:00 opening of the Bridge of Lions to continue our journey southward in the ICW. Kite would actually catch the 07:30 opening of the bridge, in order to get fuel at the city marina, and then wait until 08:00 to join Ringle as she passed through the bridge.

This morning, Lyn awakened early and decided to check the weather forecast. It was not good: severe t-storms with hail and strong wind gusts.  Looking at the radar, it appeared to be heading for most of mid-Florida, and traveling rapidly east. Peter looked at it too, and confirmed that he too did not want to be underway in the ICW in that kind of weather, so we called Ringle before 07:30 and decided jointly to stay another day in St. Augustine.  Kite decided to go ahead and refuel today before the rain started, to get that task out of the way and avoid any further delay tomorrow.

After returning to our mooring, we heard a few raindrops impacting our canvas dodger, and expected a deluge to follow, but it never showed up. Checking the radar at noon, the mass of stormy weather had drifted a little more southerly, so that it would pass a few miles below St. Augustine, but still impact Daytona and points south. We decided to have lunch ashore at a charity tent that was set up on the marina grounds, and we called for the noon launch to pick all of us up at our boats.

View from balcony of A1A Café

The charity event was offering a low country boil of shrimp, sausage, potatoes and corn on the cob. It was very good, although the shrimp was a bit over cooked. Lyn and I both enjoyed that lunch and then all five of us walked around downtown St. Augustine. Eveline wanted to explore an early Greek Orthodox church there, so we all learned about how many oppressed Mediterranean peoples in the 1700s were enticed by Dr. Andrew Turnbull (a Scotsman) to become indentured servants to work on land in New Smyrna, Florida and one day to own a piece of it. The results didn’t turn out as well for the oppressed peoples as they had hoped it would – mistreatment, treachery, etc. - but it is all a part of our diverse history. After that we enjoyed coffees and desserts at a local dining establishment before returning on the 4pm launch to our respective boats.

The stormy weather never actually materialized in St. Augustine, but the radar showed that Daytona (today’s intended destination) got a substantial amount of rain in mid-afternoon, so we felt our decision to wait was a good one. We plan to depart St. Augustine for Daytona tomorrow morning, as the weather clears, and we look forward to several days of clear, cool weather.