Central Florida

Its been a while since we posted.....  I'll try not to bore everyone with the small details.  We spent a day and a half in St. Augustine and loved it.  It was an amazing history lesson for us.  Being the New England snobs that we are, it is easy to forget that Plymouth is not the oldest city in what is now the modern U.S.   St. Augustine was settled by Spain in 1585!  The amazing Castillo de San Marcos is a National Park that preserves the history of this amazing port city.  We visited the fort, an archaeology museum, and the old Flagler Hotel.  The architecture was incredible.  Win also made a brief stop at the Dr.  for some antibiotics for a respiratory infection.  On the whole, a worthwhile stopover.
       Leaving St. Augustine, we quickly ventured into more typical Florida scenery.  "The Ditch" as they call it, passes through some boring, heavily developed areas.  We drove hard and made it to Daytona for the night.  Thanks to the kindness of some "live aboards" we bummed a ride to a convenience store for milk and eggs.  From Daytona we pushed on to Titusville, Fl.  Despite the lack of scenery, we were able to spot a few more exciting critters.  Win spied the first Manatees and Ben found Roseate Spoonbills.  Titusville is an economically depressed city directly across the river from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.  The end of the Space Shuttle Program has severely affected the area.  We were able to camp out on a mooring for short money and await the arrival of my Mom.  Unfortunately for Sam, he lost a bet against the kids in a poker game and we were "forced" to take the kids to Disney.  After a restful night on the boat the six of us headed to Orlando for two nights and three exhausting days at Disney and Universal Studios.  It was a huge culture shock for us to go from the peaceful boat to the theme parks.
We returned to the boat on Thursday and celebrated Ben's birthday with a grilled steak dinner.  We are currently underway in 20-30 knot winds.....  headed South until dark.