Raven and Loon

The following story is from Alvah Simon's book "North to the Night" an adventure of a man and his cat purposely iced in at an Arctic anchorage. Read it when you are nice and warm.

“Omnipresent scavengers, predators, and observers of the Arctic environment, the raven is considered the most intelligent of the birds.  It figures prominently in the mythology of the northern peoples.”

…the Inuit tell this story about the ebony bird: “being close friends, the Raven and the Loon agreed to tattoo each other one day.  They went to the igloo, where Raven created a delicate black-and-white pattern all over the Loon. Raven stood back and, Oh, make me look just like that. ‘But every time Loon pricked Raven with the tattooing feather, Raven yelped and flinched.  Loon said, ‘If you jump one more time, I’ll pour this ink all over you. ‘Raven jumped.  Loon dumped the pot over his head, and ran for the igloo tunnel.  In a rage, Raven threw the ink pot, which struck Loon very hard in the legs.  And that is why, to this day the Raven is black and the Loon cannot walk.”

December 7, 2017

I am not trying to be terribly philosophical about the cruisers life but there are several wonderful parts of cruising that don't need interpretation to enjoy them. I am amazed at how fortunate we are to be in the right place to see our friends without any planning ahead.

We met Lucy and Merritt at Kingsley Plantation near Jacksonville, Florida. We immediately knew they were important to keep in touch with.  We pulled into the next anchorage and there was Harmony (their boat) with Lucy and Merritt.  We ran into them again in St. Augustine and spent time together.

Today I was going to email him and see where they were, but before I sent the email we came up beside them on the Waterway, he was headed to Cocoa Beach for a few days while we are headed to an anchorage north of Vero Beach.  We will see them again.
Unfortunately I don't have a picture of Merritt, but here is a picture of Lucy, a Maltipoo. 

Jack and Patty went on there way to visit friends on Cumberland Island, Georgia.  We met up again in Fernandina Beach where Jack and Patty were grounded for several days while Frick and Frack tore apart their engine to replace an elbow in the cooling system. Frick and Frack ordered the wrong part because the mechanic ordered it by the picture not the serial number of the engine.  The engine room was torn up for days, Fernandina Beach is a nice place to visit, but after awhile being grounded anywhere is not fun.  I assume Frick and Frack went on with their lives, as have Patty and Jack. 

We spent one night in Fernandina Beach, again eating is our favorite pastime.

...but not our only pastime observing the people around us is quite fun too. Here is a senior citizen, probably older than anyone we know, getting into her Miata after she strapped her walker on the trunk of her car and used her cane to walk to the drivers seat. She took off in her souped up Miata with all the grace one can have driving a small sports car.

Just plain cute

The "husband's chair" has become a trend now in stores where women spend a lot of time shopping.  Here is this stores comic take on the theme.  I actually think this is sad, but I don't want to over think it.

We had a wonderful anchorage at Kingsley Plantation when we left Fernandina Beach where we met Merritt and Lucy.

More about the Kingsley Plantation.

Slave Housing

Ponte Vedra Beach

Ponte Vedra Beach is an unincorporated seaside community in St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Located eighteen miles (29 km) southeast of downtown Jacksonville and 26 miles (42 km) north of St. Augustine, it is part of the Jacksonville Beaches area.

The name of this anchorage is Pine Island South one of the places that we caught up with Merritt and Lucy in fact that is their boat Harmony in the foreground.

We arrived at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina on November 30th and waited for Jack and Patty's diesel mechanic to finish up the work.  We had reservation at the marina for two days and one on a mooring waiting for them to come in.  We moved off the mooring and back to the marine for two more days. 

Sam and Gerry, Jack and Patty, Rob and I all headed out to dinner, this time at the A1A Alehouse across the street from the marina. 

Here are three of the fearless foursome waiting to eat with Sam and Gerry

Here is a Lion Fish in an aquarium waiting to be fed while we wait to be seated.

Smile

from our mooring on the Matanza River, St. Augustine

Matanzas River is a body of water located in St. Johns and Flagler counties in the U.S. state of Florida. It is a narrow saltwater bar-bounded estuarysheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by Anastasia Island.

The Matanzas River is 23 miles (37 km) in length^[1] and extends from St. Augustine Inlet southward to approximately 6.5 miles (10.5 km) south of the Matanzas Inlet on the southern tip of Anastasia Island. The river is part of the Intracoastal Waterway.

The Matanzas River at St. Augustine was the main entrance to the historic city, America's oldest port. The body of water is often referred to as the Matanzas Harbor in the immediate vicinity of the city's waterfront. The southern portion of the Matanzas River was traditionally considered the "backdoor" to the city of St. Augustine, and control of the river was considered a strategic necessity for early Spanish colony at St. Augustine. Spanish engineers and laborers built Fort Matanzas in the 18th century to control access to the river from Matanzas Inlet, about 14 miles (23 km) south of St. Augustine.

The Matanzas River supports an extensive tidal marsh habitat. Extensive conservation efforts including the Matanzas marsh, Faver-Dykes State Park, Princess Place preservation area, Pellicer Place preservation area, Pellicer Creek Aquatic Preserve, the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve, and the Moses Creek conservation area have been established to preserve the ecosystem. The preserved areas include salt marshes, mangrove tidal wetlands, oyster bars, estuarine lagoons, upland habitat, and marine environments. The Matanzas River faces several pollution issues, mostly related to urbanization in St. Augustine and the northern portion of Anastasia Island.

Two major bridges cross the Matanzas River, the Bridge of Lions and the Mickler-O'Connell Bridge, both between St. Augustine and Anastasia Island.

The Matanzas River was named by Spanish forces for a massacre, led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés of Spain, of a group of several hundred shipwrecked French Huguenots from Fort Caroline, led by Jean Ribault. The Huguenots were executed somewhere near the present site of Matanzas Inlet in 1565. Menéndez had been ordered to kill all Protestants he found in the New World. "Matanzas" means "killings" or "slaughters" in Spanish. Matanzas is thus the tenth-oldest surviving European place-name in the US.^[2]

St. Augustine is always fun and while there we talked about last Christmas with Julia in St. Augustine.  I do believe that St. Augustine is best city to visit at Christmas time.

Bridge of Lions from our boat

Remember good things happen needing no explanation.

Our dear friends Barbara and Lenny were headed for Orlando to see Julia, their daughter and our Goddaughter. We went along and spent the night, all of this unplanned.  Ryan, Julia's boyfriend was there and his parents came for wine.  We both had a really good time.

Ms. J

Ms. Cleo

She just keeps being cute

Drinking water from a glass

Tricia making Christmas cards

"What is a Weekend" a question Maggie Smith asked on one of the episodes of Downton Abbey. Something an aristocrat from the early 1900's wouldn't know and a great question for those of us that are retired.

 A sampling from a parade that lasted two hours. It is hard to capture the fun we had watching it. Again we had no idea that there was going to be a parade that day, walked to it from the marina and had a front row "seat".

A float offering tea?

Photos on a Mac will tell you where the picture was taken and all this said was United States I guess the anchorage was in the middle of nowhere.

This one is for our friend Ed, Flagler College

 Starting to look a little like Christmas

Here we are wearing out Nearly Perfect's porch

There isn't a place better than this to work on my blog

Trying not to look old

House boats

Once again fun things demand us to be spontaneous and don't we love it.  We are on our way to Fort Pierce to see Valerie and Rick of Whits End and it just happens to be a day that our dear friends Wally and Darcy will be there too.

Thankful for good things coming our way that don't require Inuit interpretation.

Tricia