Spending Time in St. Augustine

For a little over a week, we have been hanging out in St. Augustine, FL.  We had a 3,000 hour service done by Caterpillar on our engines that went very well.  Keith changed the oil on both engines and the generators.  He also replaced the impeller on both of the generators as one had disintegrated.

Where Keith spent most of the first week in St. Augustine

The bad impeller

Removing the heat exchangers using a pulley to get them out of the engine room

(These things weight in at over 150lbs)

In addition to doing all that work in the engine room, we also rented a car to run some errands.  One fun thing was to drive to one of our favorite BBQ spots.  Just south of St. Augustine in Palm Coast where we stayed for the winter of 2017-2018 is Captain's BBQ.  We took the rental car and road tripped to Captain's for lunch one day.  There is a park right at the restaurant so we ate at an outside picnic table.  We also brought some extra ribs back to the boat to put in the freezer.

Pengi enjoying some pulled pork, beef brisket, and spare ribs courtesy of Captain's BBQ

Although most everything is still closed, one day we walked around the Castillo de San Marcos.  Built by the Spanish between 1672-1695 this fort is the oldest masonry fort in the United States.  It is also one of only two forts in the world constructed of a semi-rare form of limestone called coquina.  This stone is composed of large amounts of shells from marine mollusks and other invertebrates.  As such it is very porous.  This provided an unexpected advantage for the fort, as the stone absorbed the impact of cannon balls better than more solid types of stone.  Granite and brick walls tended to shatter and produce flying shards of material when hit with cannon fire.  Cannon balls fired at the fort's coquina walls were often deflected from or embedded into the walls like BBs fired into Syrofoam.

Fort Castillo de San Marcos

You can see the St. Augustine Lighthouse from the Castillo de San Marcos

We are staying at the municipal marina that is at the base of The Bridge of Lions in downtown St. Augustine.  The Bridge of Lions is a double-leaf bascule bridge spanning the Intracoastal Waterway.  Its center opens to allow boat traffic to pass through.

View of part of the marina and Southern Style from the Bridge of Lions

One of the two lions at the entrance to the bridge (hence the name).  They are quite majestic.

We have most of our work completed.  Only waiting for some parts to arrive for a refrigerator that needs repairs before we continue to head north.  Hopefully they will arrive next week and we can get the weather to cooperate to make a move to Charleston in the next week to 10 days.