Day 63 30/9 Thursday St Augustine History!

Heather and Paul decided to have a quiet day down at the beach today as Paul has a knee problem and didn’t want to walk too far. Luckily, out accommodation is only 365 steps from the beautiful, clean, wide, beach. Rob and I had decided we wanted to find out about the fascinating history of this area. We headed down to the magnificent Castillo San Marcos Fort. St Augustine was first settled by the Spanish in 1513 and the area “La Florida”. In 1565, 700 soldiers and colonists settled here. The first fort built here was made of wood and over a couple of hundred years was burnt down several times by the British, pirates etc. In 1756 it was decided by the Spanish to build the fort in masonry so it was less easily burnt down. This is the fort that we visited today. It is a national monument and in remarkable condition. Over the past 350 years it has been ruled by the Spanish, Great Britain, Spanish again and finally the US. We were able to walk all around the fort into different rooms and areas and thought that it was truly a great experience! From here we visited the old part of St Augustine where we saw magnificent churches and beautiful buildings, many very old. We also visit the site of another fort (Fort Mose) that was a fort that was set up and populated by African Americans (either freed or escaped slaves, Spanish and Native American Indians. The Spanish didn’t treat slaves the same way as the British/US and freed them. Returning back to our accommodation, we decided to head to a lovely beachside restaurant for dinner. An excellent way to finish the day.

Day 62 29/9 Wednesday Crystal River to St Augustine (the oldest settlement in the USA)

We had a relatively easy  drive to St Augustine today, taking some of the more picturesque backroads. We arrived at St Augustine Beach close to where we were staying, around lunchtime. We had packed lunch and decided to head for the beach. The beach was very beautiful, much like our beaches at home. We had lunch and then drove into the older part of St Augustine to visit the Tourist Information office. It was in a huge building and had fantastic display/museum dedicated to the history of St Augustine. All free.  We gathered up lots of information and then headed to our lovely Airbnb to settle in. This accommodation has a pool and Heather and Paul decided to have a swim.  

Day 61 28/8 Tuesday (Rob’s Birthday) Brilliant day full of excitement

Today we had booked to do the “Ultimate Tour”, from River Ventures, mild to wild. We arrived at the River ventures shop/reception area where we were fitted out with flippers and wet suits and then shown a short video about the protocol involved when swimming with the manatees. We then headed off to the marina nearby and hopped on a lovely boat with our guide, Sheena and our captain, Mariah. (We told Rob that we had asked for these 2 lovely ladies just for his birthday.) It was only the 4 of us doing this tour which can take up to 6. Our captain said that we were going to head out to the Gulf of Mexico to do the scalloping first as the weather report showed that there could be a thunderstorm in the latter part of the day and she wanted us back in Crystal River before it hit. We travelled for about an hour out into the bay and the weather was perfect. Sunny, flat calm seas. Sheena went through the “nuts and bolts” of scalloping and then took us into the water and showed us how to dive for the scallops. We had goggles, snorkels and flippers and a bag to carry the scallops in. I had decided that I was just going to snorkel and enjoy watching the fish, stingrays and sea-stars etc. because of my ear problem but in the end I couldn’t resist. Although I didn’t get as many scallops as the others I really enjoyed the experience of diving in 8-10 feet of water for them, so much so that after about 90 minutes, I was being called back to the boat. Mariah had seen a huge thunderstorm approaching. This was not the one forecast and she said we needed to head back into the river area. Our path took us straight into the tropical thunderstorm!  Heading back in we experienced lashing rain, huge lightning strikes, thunder and even a few white caps…..where had our beautiful day gone? We all started humming and singing the theme song from Gilligan’s Island. Once back in the safety of springs/lake system the weather had calmed significantly and Sheena was happy to take us diving for with the manatees before the next predicted thunderstorm arrived. We put our wet-suits on, mainly to allow us to float easily and had this incredible experience of being in the water with them. We had to just float round on our stomachs, not make any sudden movements and just watch them feeding. They are huge! We stayed very still and both of the manatees we saw came very close to us. We had a fantastic day!!!