St. Augustine - Part 2

--Blogpost written by Bob

Tuesday, November 28

After a nice breakfast on the boat, we ventured into town and just walked around and window shopped.  The day was best described in the following photographs.

St. George Street is a pedestrian street full of little shops.
We seem to gravitate to this street like the other tourists.

A schooner sailed through the opening of the 
Bridge of Lions late this afternoon.

In the evening, we went out for dinner at Harry's and then took the tour of lights through downtown St. Augustine.

This was our view from Harry's as we started dinner.
The sun was setting behind us.

Some heavy clouds rolled in but didn't 
produce any rain, thankfully.

The Christmas Lights on Constitution Square were 
the grand finale of the tour of lights.

It was 9 PM when we got back to our boat--this is the latest we've been out since leaving Baltimore!  When we are in cruising mode, we are up and awake with the sunrise and we go to bed when the sun goes down.

Wednesday, November 29

Today, started out with the temperature in the high 60's and proceeded to warm up into the low 70's.  It was sunny and beautiful.  Because we extended our stay by 2 days, we had to change moorings at noon--from #1 to #4, just a few mooring away.  After we left our mooring #1, we topped off our diesel tanks and filled our water tanks before taking our new mooring.

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Just to show everyone that cruising is not all fun in the sun, I ‘ve been emailing with Geoff at Airhead regarding the problem with our composting toilet (not fully composting) and he suggested it may be a failure of the seal between the liquids basin (just above the liquids bottle) and the solids container. If liquids are leaking into the solids container it will prevent proper composting. So, in addition to ordering a replacement fan with 50% more air flow, I added silicone sealant to the subject area today. 

This photo is of the underside of the top of the composting toilet.  The
subject seal area is on the vertical upper third and in the
horizontal center of this image.  It looks like caulk
but it is hard like a plastic weld.

After I added the sealant and was putting the toilet back together, I noticed the insect screen in the fan inlet hose was clogged with lightweight black material (with a consistency like gooey dust).  I thoroughly cleaned this screen and reinstalled it.  This could have been the problem all along but I never though to look at this screen.

The higher-capacity replacement fan is being shipped to Vero Beach City Marina, where we will be stopping next.  I’m sure that incorporating all three fixes will solve the problem we’ve had. It is nice having such great product support from Airhead!

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This afternoon we ran into Greg & Lyn on s/v Paperbird (also from Annapolis)--they are on mooring #5, right behind us.

Thursday, November 30

This is our last day in St. Augustine--we are leaving tomorrow morning (November 30) at daybreak.

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We went out for breakfast this morning at the Bunnery on St. George Street.  As we were having breakfast, sitting at a nearby table was a homeless man having a three-pancake breakfast.  The homeless man wore dark nondescript pants, shirt, and jacket with a fur-lined hood.  He had a long, graying, unkept beard, red insect bite marks on his face, and a large bandage on his nose.  Another man in a pirate costume, complete with sword and flintlock pistol, was standing next to to his table getting financial advice from the homeless man.  It was a weird scenario, to say the least.

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As we were leaving the Bunnery and walking back to the marina, a waiter came running down the street after us and returned Maggie's cell phone--she left it on the breakfast table. This small act confirms the good feelings we have had about St. Augustine.

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No visit to St. Augustine would be complete without a couple
trips to Pizza Time--the second best pizza in
the U.S., according to TripAdvisor.

Our next blogpost will be made from Vero Beach--it will take us 3-1/2 days to get there from St. Augustine.


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