Good Morning!!

Spring time Sunrise in St. Augustine, FL

Our final days in St Augustine, FL are filled with activity, chores, and out of the mist……

Foggy High Tide at Camachee Cove Marina

Queen Anne’s Revenge leaves our quiet cove…

Queen Anne’s Revenge leaving the Cove looking to plunder

To plunder….        The Black Raven Pirate Ship!!

Black Raven Pirate Ship at Dock in St. Augustine, FL waiting for passengers, booty and loot to be loaded.

The Black Raven leaves the Old Town St Augustine almost every day.  The guests on board get an idea of the life of a seaman on a pirate boat by sailing into the ICW.   Sounds like great fun.

Queen Anne’s Revenge meets the Black Raven out on the river.  Queen Anne’s Revenge circles the big pirate ship at least once.

Pirate battle begins

Queen Anne’s Revenge shoots a cannon to threaten the bigger Black Raven Pirate ship.  BOOM!  We see the smoke and then the cannon noise hits seconds later.  Belay There, Matey!!  The smaller Queen Anne’s approaches and tries to board the bigger ship.  Oftentimes, we can hear the swords clanging as the bigger ship crew fends off the pirates.

Queen Anne’s Revenge tries to board the bigger boat!

Alas, Queen Anne’s Revenge limps back to port empty handed.  Maybe tomorrow, it shall succeed!!

As we walked around the marina the last days, we noticed a hidey hole for all sorts of birds.  A rookery?  I counted three different types of herons in these trees.  Magnificent large night herons.  Double the size that we saw daily in Sarasota.  Only seen at high tide.  At low tide, all the birds are out and feeding.  Wayne was wondering…. where are the gators??  Wouldn’t they be interested in knowing about this place?

Blue, White, and Night herons roosting in these trees

Night Heron sitting patiently for dark

SPRING TIME –  Outside of one of the Boater Lounges is a gorgeous southern oak tree.  It shades the concrete picnic table that we often stopped for a cup of coffee as we watched the fishing charters load their boats with bait and people and roar out of the marina to be the first ones to catch a few.  You can tell it is springtime when you are sitting under a tree and you have these drop on your eyeglass frame, shoulder, and beard.  Yikes!!

Later followed by tiny…tiny…red spiders.  Very tiny.  Needless to say, I don’t think I drank any but they were tiny and I just might have!  I did have Wayne dust off my blouse incase any caterpillars or spiders or pollen fell on me.  You never know.  Wayne?  Well, he does brush out his beard every now and then.

The spring rains bring little mushrooms generally un-noticed.  I like this white delicate mushroom.  I can imagine a tiny frog using it as an umbrella.

Or the Columned Stinkhorn.  I waited for this little red mushroom to open up and sprout a beautiful round red canopy.  To my chagrin, it did not.  It stays all closed up and just oozes that dark sticky fluid.  That fluid is what attracts insects say the experts.  It is called a “stinkhorn” because it smells like rotten lettuce.  I didn’t get close enough.  A few days later it melted back into the bark as if it never was there.  Such is life as a mushroom!

Lastly, the cannonball jelly fish were still in abundance.

Cannonball Jelly Fish

The Pelicans disappeared to follow the shrimp boats I imagine and the fishermen didn’t notice.  At high tide, we were graced with the sight of a manatee up close.  It was feeding on all the seaweed growing on the submerged edge of the floating dock.  At low tide, I could see how the manatee got its nickname of sea cow.  It had nibbled off all the newly grown green seaweed.

Manatee at the side of our dock

We could almost touch this guy.  But he was determined to gnaw away.  Our footsteps on the floating dock didn’t scare him away.  He finally drifted back into the high grass and disappeared.

Nosey little fella

A great sunset to send us on our way….

Sunset in St Augustine Camachee Cove Yacht Harbor

Red sky at night…. Sailors Delight.