Still in St. Augustine

We had intended to move on Wednesday but couldn't schedule an oil change until Thursday morning.  We thought we'd move on today but by the time we had the oil changed, the wind had picked up and there were white caps under the Bridge of Lions.

We slept in Wednesday morning, as it wasn't a travel day, and both Brown-Eyed Girl and Passport were all tied up at their docks here in the St. Augustine Municipal Marina when we went to the office to  extend our stay. We tore the walking tour suggestion out of our AAA book and visited some sites we'd missed when we were here last week.  We wandered all around Plaza de la Constitution, the central square around which the business section of the old city was built, and read all of the historical markers; then visited the Catholic Cathedral-Basilica of St. Augustine, the seat of the oldest Catholic parish in the nation

as well as the Memorial Presbyterian Church Henry Flagler had built in his daughter's memory:

There are 4 tombs in this church.  Flagler's daughter and her mother, his first wife, are buried side by side at the front; Flagler is off to the right and there is an empty crypt on the left.  He intended it for his 3rd (much younger) wife, but she remarried after he died, her husband killed her for her money, and she is buried in her family's plot in KY. 

Do you think this sewer may be a couple of years old?

"Do or do not, there is no try"-a couple of old friends in a shop widow:

We know we've posted lots of bird pictures, but could you resist?

 When we first opened the boat Wednesday morning, we could smell smoke.  There are 21 fires burning in Florida and the wind pattern sent some of the smoke our way. As the day progressed, the wind changed and the smoke moved to the south and west.  Late in the afternoon Mary thoroughly vacuumed on deck to remove the last vestiges of the wind-driven construction dust from Patrick Air Force Base.  She was almost finished when Mary and John stopped on the dock to talk on their way back to Passport.  As we visited, (slow) Mary brushed something off (slow) John's dark shirt.  After she brushed at his shirt a few times, he took over and there was more and more ash-yes, ash from the fires near Jacksonville.  That's not fog or haze in this picture, it's smoke.

All of our boats had a fine coating and all of the Mary Frances deck surfaces recently cleaned were covered.  What to do?  Join Mary and John and Ginny and Craig for cocktails on the dock then dinner at the A1A microbrewery across the street and hope the wind eventually blows it all away.  The food was very good and the company even better.

Thursday morning the oil change took about an hour and weather was not conducive to travel so we canceled our Fernandina Beach reservation and extended here.  Mary caught up on a lot of paper and computer work, John ran a couple of errands and we took another walk in the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in our country.  Much of the early construction here is "coquina"-soft limestone with shell and coral bits:

Mary Frances is rockin' and rollin' (Jo, you would not be happy here tonight!) but the waves are supposed to calm some tonight so we'll get up early tomorrow and see what the day promises.