November 2012

If you ever get to St Augustine you owe it to yourself to take a tour of the of Hotel Ponce De Leon, named after the Spanish explorer who put St Augustine on the map, making it the oldest city in America.   The National Park Service has a nice write-up on the hotel that’s worth reading.

The hotel was built in 1887 and completed in just two years, is a really remarkable building and set the stage for the high end tourist industry in Florida with luxury hotel furniture. Flagler, then one of the wealthiest men in the world, was the guy behind the project and “spared no expense” when that really meant something.  This place is totally over the top.

The hotel was massively successful when it opened and lead to Flagler building other properties in Florida, including another across the street.  Ultimately the hotel fell on hard times and was turned into the Flagler college in the 70s.  They receive funding as a national monument and clearly from other sources as tuition isn’t very high for a private college and the facility maintenance alone must be a massive expense.  While the hotel is a key part of the college, they make portions of it available for tours.

Brenda and I enjoyed a visit yesterday and while it’s safe to say that “you had to be there” when it comes to appreciating the grandeur of it all, perhaps some of these detail shots will give you an idea of what it is all about.

This shot, which I used before in a prior post, is a small portion of the front of the building.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take a shot of the main entrance.   What an amazing structure.  It’s hard to believe that something this grand could have been built in only two years. The exterior details are just exquisite like this piece above a window. These “spouts” are actually for decoration only and serve no practical function.  They are just great.  You know what they say…”it’s better to look good than to feel good”  In this case, it’s better to look good than to be functional.  I’d have to agree.Lovely tile work around the main entrance. Intricate detail everywhere.  I wouldn’t expect that this would have survived the northern winters, or the pollution of a city like New York.

Once you enter the lobby the detail is even more remarkable.   Louis Comfort Tiffany handled all of the interior decorations and windows.   “Nice job Louis.  I just love your handiwork…”  There is a big dome over the grand entrance lobby and you can’t believe that all of this detail is in a single room. Nearly all of the wood is oak and is wonderfully carved.  It seems that Flagler employed shifts around the clock to make his two year timeline.   Bigger than life size, there are intricate motifs everywhere, and all with their own meaning. It’s hard to believe that this sort of craftsmanship ever existed, much less all in one place.   And, it’s still in great shape thanks to a big restoration project a few years ago.
The higher up you look, and it’s a long way up, the detail just continues.
We were shown other rooms, including the main dining room, still used for that purpose by the students of the college.  This building has more Tiffany glass in it than in any other building, anywhere.  I believe it. The windows in the dining room are just fabulous.  And, there are just so many in every pattern imaginable.  I expect, in the presence of such a grand room that food fights are not common among the students.  What do you think?  “now be good, ladies and gentleman, and keep your elbows off of the table.  And, I mean now…” The ladies lounge was just exquisite with so many fine details.  It looked, to me, like a (really big) piece of fine china instead of a room. What a fireplace and the clock, like all of the rest of the, then rare, electrical system, was crafted by Thomas Edison himself.    “Hey Tom, I am going to build this really nice hotel in St. Augustine and was wondering if you’d be available to put a few of those new fangled electric light thingies  into it?  The timetable?  Now is a good time.”  The chandeliers, nine in this room alone,  were also from Tiffany and in perfect shape.   Someone spent big dollars restoring this room, for sure.
Sure, the lighting in my shots aren’t museum quality but this place surely is.  You should visit.  This town, St Augustine, may be the best stop yet for the crew of Pandora.  Saturday we leave to continue south.

Oh yea, did I say that the sun is out today and it’s going to be in the mid 70s.  Not perfect but…  Me, I’ll take it.

It’s hard to believe that we are nearly at the end of November and yet we had lunch at a sidewalk cafe just yesterday.  Yesterday was a really nice day.

In the interest of fair balance, I should note that today is not sunny at all and it’s windy and much cooler, if you think of 61 degrees as cool.  After just a short time heading south, my cold tolerance has become much less, that’s for certain.   Actually, my love of winter (NOT!!!) has diminished greatly over the last few years but this trip has certainly been a big contributor to my quest to have my own “personal quest to find warmth in my globe”.   Does that mean that I should become a member of AARP too?   Hmm…

Speaking of sidewalk cafe dining on a sunny afternoon.   Does this look like a nice lunch spot?  It was a really fun Cuban spot.

As we walked around town we enjoyed watching a photo shoot in a fountain in front of the Lightner Museum, which is housed in one of the old grand hotels.  It was fun to see the model vamp for the camera.   The person on the left was prompting her to do particular poses and the two photographers were catching the action.   There she was wading in the water with plenty of tourists watching her every move.  I expect that sort of behavior takes plenty of self confidence. After the first model was done and plenty wet, this one waded in for her “swim time”.   Ok, enough of that.  We moved on. We visited a really interesting museum housed in one of the two old Flagler Hotels in St Augustine.   The Lightner Museum who’s collection was billed as a showing of “a collector of collections”.   They have a very nice website and some neat panoramas.   Lightner’s collection is really an inside view of what Victorian collectors surrounded themselves with and included every sort of “collectible” you could imagine from fine china to cigar wrappers.   Collecting is certainly a very human trait and one that built to a fever pitch during the Guilded Age.  If you like “suff” this is your museum.   Me, all I could think about was dusting all of that stuff.  The exterior of the museum is about as ornate as what is inside.   The architects that designed this for Flagler went on to design the New York Public Library. I was particularly struck by the inner courtyard complete with a koi pond and some very well fed koi. Imagine strolling around the courtyard after your morning swim in what was, at the time, the largest indoor pool anywhere. The museum is perhaps as much about Victorian excess as ingenuity.   This “music box”, and they have several amazing examples that push the limit of this craft, plays both a violin and piano and is a good example of how elaborate they can be.   Think about how many musicians these little babies put out of work.  I wonder if there were pickets outside of the companies that were manufacturing these?  Didn’t they have any heart for starving musicians?  Perhaps they were retrained as waiters, a tradition that seems to have stood the test of time.

One of the Flagler hotels is now the home of Flagler College.    Talk about ornate.  I hope that they have a good endowment.  It’s a good thing that they don’t have to cope with freezing winters and the pollution of a big city which would certainly raise havoc with the fine detail.
I wonder if the granting of tenure brings with it an office in this tower?  Me?  Yes, I would live there.
Ok, I think that my last few posts have included photos of these particular buildings.  Enough already!!!  Well, why not more photos of the town green.  It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…  I wish that I had said that. Finally, after viewing the photo shoot in the fountain I decided that I needed my own “shoot”.   I just (especially) love Brenda in hats. I think that I will have to leave it at that for now.

It’s Tuesday morning and the sun is just beginning to peak up above the horizon with a soft light here in St Augustine.  Today, for the first time in quite a while, the morning air smells somehow buoyant and tropical.  Perhaps it’s just low tide but I think that there is something more, not the least of which is that it’s only 59 degrees and not in the 40s, and sometimes 30s, as has been the case over the last few weeks.    The only sound is our generator rumbling away on deck and that’s certainly enough to disturb the silence.  However, a cold shower for Brenda later would be more disturbing, that’s for sure.  There always needs to be hot water for showers.

Speaking of energy production, I have noticed that while our solar panels provide for plenty charging in the summer, the days are just too short and sun too low in the sky to fully recharge the batteries on their own.   The electricity used by our diesel heater also adds to the electrical drain more than usual.  Yes, it’s gotten quite a workout over the last month or so.

St Augustine, the oldest city in America, is a magical place and the Christmas lights, and let me tell you that they are amazing, are among the best in the world. That distinction comes from none other than the National Geographic Magazine.   Brenda’s blog post a few days ago talked about that in particular.

Yesterday we decided to go for a walk to explore the city.  The down town area is  certainly touristy but it’s done in a nice way.  There are narrow streets that are lined with shops and restaurants.  We enjoyed looking around for hours.  Henry Flagler, a founder of Standard Oil, arguably the guy that had more to do with the popularization of Florida as a destination than anyone, had a big impact here, building some of the grandest buildings in the city.  Many are well preserved under the guidance of his namesake, Flagler College.  His buildings are quite distinctive and give the downtown area much of it’s character.  This building is open to tours even though it’s part of the college.  I expect that we will visit here today. While not lit, you can get a feel for the holiday lights from this gazebo down in the town green near the waterfront.  I am getting used to the look of decorations and palms.  We also visited the fort, the oldest in America and the only one that was never breached.  It was built by Spain in the 1500s. It’s pretty impressive.  Inside the courtyard you can get a feel for how those manning the fort lived.  Not well, I would guess.  Imagine this place in the heat of summer. “Listen mate, it’s so %$#&*%$ hot here in the courtyard, I am going to go up on the battlement to catch some air.  Gee, I hope I see a pirate!  That would be just so cool(ing).”However, hot or not, the view is pretty dramatic.  I doubt that the bad guys, whomever they might have been at any given moment in time, would have had a tough time getting past this fort. When the locals weren’t building forts, they spent plenty of time building churches, and there are some really nice ones here.  Not a lot of wood construction, mostly whitewashed masonry.
Just in case you might be lulled into believing that everything about Christmas in St Augustine is in good taste, I’ll burst your bubble by inserting this lovely shot of Santa’s favorite compliments of the local miniature golf course.  He seems to be looking at something and pondering something.  As Satchel Paige once said, “sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits”.  This course is billed as the oldest in Florida.  I wonder how they stack up against the other courses outside of Florida?  Hmm… We spied this little guy on the dock as we were headed back to Pandora. We were also treated to a lovely view of the Bridge of Lions, one of the nicest bridges we have seen on our trip.   Built in the 1920s and recently restored, it was purported to cost some 10x more than most bridges of it’s type when it was built.  Roads and Bridges magazine voted it one of the nation’s top ten bridges in 2010.  Yes, indeed, there is a magazine for everything.  If you are curious about who else won the competition, you can see the list here.  I’ll bet that my dad will click on this link as he loves bridges.   Never the less, what terrific evening light. We capped off the day with a nice phone call to my parents while all on the call enjoyed a glass of wine.  After the call Brenda and I had a terrific dinner of beef fillets wrapped in bacon with grilled onions and peppers, nicely done on the grill.   All and all, a very nice day. So, on with my day…

It’s Monday morning and I awoke to a really nice sunrise.  We arrived in St Augustine on Sunday afternoon, yesterday, and were immediately struck by just how beautiful this city is.  I have never really heard much about St Augustine but visiting here was highly recommended by a number of folks.

Wow, we are sure glad to be here.  We have a friend, a past SAGA 43 owner, Peter who moved here a few years ago after visiting here on a trip south with his wife.  After many years of cruising out of Maine, where they have had a home for many years, they decided that spending the winters in a warmer place was a good idea, so here they are and about to enjoy their 4th winter.

Peter took us under his wing within hours of our arrival and showed us the sights.  We drove around town and out to a great beach bar to have a beer as the sun set over the harbor.

After a few hours with Peter I see that there is so much to do here that my head is swimming with possibilities.  Perhaps we will have to extend our stay to more than a few days.  One of the best parts of this city is that there is so much to see within a short distance of the waterfront.   However, to make it easy, Peter gave us a few dining ideas.  The brew pub he recommended, where we ate last night was great.  I highly recommend the stout.  Excellent.

Yesterday we continued our way down on the ICW and again enjoyed the sights.

In the morning, as we crossed the St John’s River we spied this shipyard working on several mega-yachts.  I have seen this one Azteca, in one of the magazines that I get at home.  Check out the link and see just how amazing this boat, er ship, is. This must be a yard with flexible capabilities as they also had a Aegis Cruiser in a dry dock right near Azteca.  I’ll bet that the interior is a bit different between the two ships.  You don’t want to tangle with one of these, that’s for sure.  Even though Azteca is a BIG boat, she is dwarfed by this cruiser. As we head south, so far from home, it’s amazing how different things are and yet the same.  Here we were, motoring along over 1,000 miles from home and what do we see but Aphrodite, the historic barrel-backed commuter yacht from Watch Hill RI, near our home waters.   We also saw her in Annapolis in early October.   Heading south?  There seems to be a pattern here for many boats.  As we continue south we do tend to bump into boats that we have seen before.  If we see her again, perhaps I will have to visit to borrow a cup of Chivas Regal or Grey Poupon.   Perhaps not.  Plenty of Christmas spirit along the way.  Do these decorations look out of place to you too?  Nice pad though if a bit over the top. As we passed Jacksonville we spied the Mayo Clinic, a group, the Rochester MN group anyway, that I worked with during much of my career.   This location looks a lot different than the one that I often visited in the cold MN winters. With all the marshland we have been seeing I have been wondering when we would see an air boat zipping along.   Pretty neat, and VERY LOUD.Off they want across the marsh.  I need one of these!However, the marsh does often give way to development.  And develop they do.  Homes on top of homes all along the coast as we got closer to St Augustine. But, still plenty of lovely woodlands to enjoy in between developments as they can’t build on marsh at least not any more. And, the ever present pelicans.  Brenda likes to call them pelidactyl.  I agree, they do look primeval. I just can’t get enough of these guys.  But, they look a lot more contemporary when viewed against the backdrop of an arching bridge.  Get it, arching bird, arching bridge?This trip is just so full of wonder for me.  I can’t imagine how it’s going to be when we finally get to the Bahamas, the land of 80 degree water with 100′ visibility.  Tiki bars, you know the ones with little umbrellas in the drinks?  I am soo ready!!!

For now, St Augustine beckons and I am there, totally…   Tiki?  That will have to wait for now.

It’s Saturday morning and the sun is out.  We were thinking about making a run to St Augustine offshore today but decided to take the easy way by going inside.   The winds are from the right direction, NW at 20 but the distance is pretty far for a one day run and it’s getting late.   Besides, the wind in the anchorage is gusting to 22kts and it’s only 8:30 so I expect that it will be stronger than forecast.

In any event, we have plenty of time so inside it is.    Today we will leave mid morning and run about half of the way to St. Augustine and continue for the rest of the way on Sunday.

Thanksgiving was great fun with about 100 in attendance.  In past years the crowd has been up to three times that size but some think that the nasty weather over the last few weeks has kept some from making it there or that they just decided to bypass the festivities and head south where it is warmer.  It has been plenty cold, that’s for sure.

So, yesterday we made the one hour run down to Cumberland Island, one of the many barrier islands that run down the coast and make the ICW possible.  These islands form a barrier from the ocean and the ICW runs behind them all the way from Norfolk VA to Key West.   One of these islands, Cumberland, is now a state park and there are trails and great beaches to explore.  There is even a dock that you can tie up the dink to so getting ashore is very easy.  As you head in past the visitor center, a small building manned by a park ranger, you instantly see how rugged this island would be without paths.   The ground is completely covered in Sago Palm and above that is a dense forest of Live Oak.  It’s very primeval looking.  I’d hate to have to bushwhack through this place in the dark. Once you are off of the wide trails, not so inviting. We followed the wide path out to the beach.  They have a number of nice boardwalks to take you over the dunes.  The dunes are very pretty, sculpted by the wind. After a walk on the beach we headed inland and walked across a landscape that looked a lot less inviting.  Pretty gnarly looking, actually. The surface of the weathered wood was very interesting.  There are loads of critter footprints   I expect that this was some sort of small bird.   The trails were everywhere. There are ruins of a large mansion built here in the late 1800s by the Carnegie family.    You can certainly see how it must have been a magnificent home and made possible by great wealth and no income tax.  Some very nice details like these flower urns.   You can imagine how grand this place must have been. And, some old cars.  The only way to get to this spot is by water so they must have been brought in by ferry.   Not much left of these. Plenty of other outbuildings on the estate.  Some were probably very fancy.  I liked this one. Some really interesting outbuildings including this tower.   Pretty ornate and fragile looking.

So fragile, in fact, that while we sat nearby and enjoyed a snack, we heard some cracking and creaking and the whole thing came down in a cloud of dust.   Amazing timing.  “Honest, Ranger Rick, we didn’t touch it.  Really!!”Some of the local turkey population.   I guess that these guys knew that it was the day after Thanksgiving and that they were once again safe. When the property was abandoned fore-bearers of  these horses were left behind.  They were completely unconcerned by our presence. We also took some time to dig in some of the dredging spoil sand piles for fossil shark teeth.   We found two small ones.  Not much to write home about but it was fun.  I was lucky to stumble on a framed sifter.  Had there been more time I expect that I would have found more. Tiny but pretty neat.    I guess that these were’t the large sort of prehistoric sharks you imagine making a meal out of something the size of Pandora.  Plenty sharp though. We also picked up some great shells on the beach.  Don’t know what we will do with them but you can bet that by the time Pandora returns from the Bahamas she will be groaning under the weight of all the shells aboard. To end the day we had a really nice sunset followed with dinner with some friends aboard Pandora.  It looks fake doesn’t it.   No, I just used a standard lens with no filter.  That’s really the way it looked, trust me.

So, time to get going and catch the fair tide as we continue south.