Day 202 – 204
We slept in on Wednesday, 03/31/21, and then while I added to this blog, Steve ordered more groceries to be delivered to our boat by Instacart. Later in the afternoon, I walked over to the European Village to check out the shops by myself, then Steve met me there later at Moonrise Brewing Company for some afternoon beverages. The weather changed our plans (as it so often does) and made us stay in our slip at Palm Coast Marina for several additional days. As a result, we shortened our stay in St. Augustine, as we were trying to meet up with our friends on R&R, the Spykmans, in Jacksonville, FL, before they left there. We had reservations at The Marina at Ortega Landing, south of Jacksonville, but wouldn’t arrive there until Sunday afternoon, which meant we might miss seeing our friends. We sure hoped not!
After our drinks, we walked across the Village to Vida – A Latin Experience restaurant for an early dinner of Latino appetizers, which were quite tasty. This time, we CHOSE to dine outside on their covered patio and people-watch.
Thursday and Friday, 04/01/21, and 04/02/21, were cloudy and much colder, as the cold-front we’d been expecting passed through. We had already thoroughly explored the European Village, and couldn’t get anywhere else without calling an Uber, which were becoming harder and harder to get the further north we progressed in Florida. So, we opted to stay onboard and catch up on boat chores. The high on Friday, the 2nd, was only in the mid-50s, with overcast skies and horrendous winds. NOT the Florida weather one expects on the coast! (Or anywhere in the state, for that matter!)
On Friday evening, we bundled up (yep – long pants, long sleeves, and jackets again…) and walked back over to the European Village for dinner at La Piazza, a very nice Italian restaurant. I ordered the halibut special, and Steve had the sea bass special. We enjoyed a delicious meal (dining INSIDE, thank you very much) with excellent service. We both decided La Piazza was too nice for the rest of European Village.
I’ve made a point of checking our Nebo (boat location) app for fellow Loopers each time we come into a new marina. If we find any, we might reach out to them to get together for lunch, docktails, or dinner, since we have the Loop in common. When we got to Palm Coast Marina, we noticed right off a boat named September, which we had run across back on the Tennessee River system, last fall. I was going to go knock on their boat, but soon realized they had a boat full of company (looked like kids and grand-kids), so decided not to intrude. Their company left several days later, but before we could connect with them, they threw off their lines and took off from Palm Coast Marina early one morning. D’OH!
Position: N 29° 34.630, W 81° 11.587
Total marina nights: 182
Total nights at anchor: 21