A PLEASANT SURPRISE

We arrived in St. Augustine really excited to tour the historic city which was celebrating its 450 year anniversary.  It is an amazing city, but  it was about our coldest windiest stop yet, and because of impending weather, we  anchored overnight and left early the next day to get to a less expensive place to dock to sit out a couple of days of 30 knot plus winds.

So - Happy 450 Birthday St. Augustine!

 MARINELAND

Our  true Yachtie friends Rod and Pauline had told us about a great marina at Marineland,  (Marineland is a city!)  with Free Laundry,  cheap dockage,  free shuttle to groceries and free passes to  a  Marine life research facility.

Here we are taking off!

What nice people  running the marina! They lent us there personal car to go get groceries, and were so helpful with everything we needed.





















We had a great time,  after a short trip to the beach with the whole gang Schooner and I walked 6 miles  and  explored the beaches.

John had a sore back and had a lot of  work to do, so stayed closer to home. Annie is getting too old for the long walks, so after a quick visit she stays home and keeps John company!




 Schooner has become my walking buddy.  He is always up for a walk, and since the vet told us he needed more exercise (we had started to call him Fatty Patty)  and I  am wroking really hard at getting lots of exercise in we have become real pals!






While in Marineland we met Jim and Pam -great people who are  living aboard their Defever 49' trawler  (Silver Boots) for 10 years, and  don't miss having a home at all!  (The boat was amazing, and more like a home than a boat)We spent a couple of fun evenings with them -  It's always great to talk to people who are successful at doing what you want to do.!



I have a real aversion to zoo's or to animal theme parks where the animals put on performances.  I much prefer to see animals in the wild - so I wasn't sure that I even wanted to check out our free passes to the Marineland park,  but  we braved the cold and walked across the street to check it out.

What a wonderful surprise! 

Marineland has been turned into more of a research station than theme park. They  are affiliated with University of  Florida and Georgia Aquarium andrescue turtles,  and study Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins that have been bred in captivity.  They don't use them to put on shows because they say it stresses the dolphins out.    

Instead they let people come and observe the dolphins and because dolphins  are so friendly, often you get a show just because they want to interact and show off! 

We had a guide for the two of us,  and we got to see how the dolphins were treated and  fed and just got to observe them right up close.






We stood next to the dolphins huge swim area (that has water piped in from the beach)  and  as soon as they saw us they came up and talked to us and jumped and  put on their on extemporaneous show.   It only took us about 10 minutes to recognize some of the dolphins.

Here is Coquina!

the youngest dolphin only 8 months old, and she  was very curious. Dolphins live in Captivity up to 80 years old, but only about 25 years in the wild.  

This is Chubby!  

 He was my favourite (maybe because I relate to him)  Chubby  followed us  around and  watched everything we did, and whenever our attention was somewhere else he stretched himself up high so we would look at him!  He was having a great time showing off for us and moved around with us posing until we took a photo or two!