Float my Boat: New Smyrna, Palm Coast and Saint Augustine - Loop Trip Days 104

New Smyrna Beach is the place where Regina basically grew up coming here for the beach. Needless to say, she is loving being here! Saturday is our first full day in town and we were looking forward to seeing one of her friends, Pam. Unfortunately, Pam's adorable little dog, Ruffles, decided to eat a bowl of peanuts the evening before and they had to spend the night in the doggie emergency room! For future reference, I love peanuts having had an uncle who was a Tom's distributor so just let me have the bowl and there will be no more problems. Left to our own devices, we walked into town where a music festival was being held on Canal Street. Groups started playing at noon and went until 9 that night all up and down the street. It was quite an event and tons of people were there. We just kept going down the street seeing one group after another until we came to the The Half Wall Beer House where a Celtic/Country group was playing. Now you don't find something like that everyday and they were great! They could go from Danny Boy to Hotel California without blinking. We ended up staying there until they finished and had our early dinner before going back to the marina. We had to get back to watch the Vols play Georgia in the last basketball game of the regular season. First half of the game wasn't looking good, but my Vols knocked off the dawgs to be SEC Co-Champions! Boy was this better than football season!

Fritz the marina cat

One of the downtown music acts

Downtown New Smyrna

Regina's cousin Laurie, and her husband Woody, live here in New Smyrna Beach and they came to see us on Sunday. They were at Brittany's wedding back in October, but we didn't get to spend much time together then. So today was a catch up day. We started about 10 at the marina and then went to lunch at The Outrigger. This restaurant is located at another marina here and overlooked the water with a little townhouse community right there. It was obviously very popular because even on this windy and cool day, it was packed. From here, we went to Laurie and Woody's new home just a little way down A1A from downtown NSB. They have just moved into their renovated home which is so close to the beach that, at the right time, you can hear the waves breaking. We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting and playing with their puppies, Roxy and Rufus. I'm not sure which one licked my face most, but I got to say these 75 pound cuties are deceptively sweet.

Rufus

Roxy

Off for a golf cart ride

Christmas came again on Monday when Rob and Mary Lu came to visit and delivered all the packages that we had been sending to their house. Our family and friends along the way are a great help in assisting with getting things that we can't pick up at our locations - sort of an extension of the UPS man. They got into town and we went on a short walk through the city and looked at the historical site across the street before taking us on a grocery store run. It looked like we only came back with jugs and bottles of water, but there was some food in there as well. When all that was unloaded and put away, we headed off to The Garlic to meet Laurie for dinner. This is one of the wildest restaurants I have ever been to. The pictures hardly do justice to the natural decor of the place. Except for the big wood fired pizza ovens, you would never think this was an excellent Italian restaurant! After eating, we all went back to Laurie's house for desert and more family time. We sure enjoyed our visit to NSB and have had a fun time here!

The marker across from the marina

The foundation remains

The Garlic

The Garlic

Our group

Thursday morning was quite a chilly 48 degrees when we were leaving the City Marina. Fortunately, it was sunny and very calm so we didn't freeze in this return of winter! The ICW between NSB and Palm Coast was quite varied between wide and narrow sections. We were going to take a short cut that lead us to the St Lucie Inlet to then take a side channel back north to the ICW. Arriving at the inlet, the waves were rolling in and there were no markers on that "alternative" route. This called for a course reversal and back to the longer, but marked, route. The remainder of the ride on to the north was peaceful with very few other boats out. Minimum wake zones were plentifully so this was not a fast trip. We got to Palm Coast Marina which is down a canal on the west side of the waterway, added some fuel and got tied into a spot on the face dock. There was a development called European Village about a 10 minute walk away and we went there for a nice dinner at another Italian place! Good thing there are a lot of different kinds of ltalian food, two days in a row is a bit much. Track and photos - www.ramblr.com/web/mymap/trip/273527/975803

The next day, we hung out at the boat while I worked on reservations for the locations coming up. One thing that's not working out is going to Cumberland Island. It turns out that at the place is so popular that you need to book tours two to three weeks in advance and you must give 14 days notice to get a cancellation refund. That pretty much says any interruption to schedule, be it weather or mechanical, and you loose the somewhat expensive tour ticket. Oh well, guess that this will be a land trip sometime later. At least I got the rest of the month worked out. So for the afternoon we decided to go to the Beach Front Grille. Turned out that this ocean front location was a little ways from our marina, but was worth the trip. It had a picture window view of the breakers rolling in off the Atlantic. We met the owner, Jamey, who was a really interesting guy. He was a big college football fan who played tight end when he was at the University of Akron. Not to mention that he has actually been to Knoxville for a game thanks to regulars who are Vols season ticket holders! Truly is a small world.

Jamey at work

Thursday was our next travel day and the destination, Saint Augustine. This should be a great stop with lots of history and things to see and do. This was not a long trip so we didn't start too early which allowed the temperature to rise a bit above the 44 degrees registered at 8 AM.The wind was blowing about 14 mph so it was feeling even colder. It was an interesting trip as almost all the way up the west side of the waterway was undeveloped and undisturbed while the east side was just the opposite. A surprising number of boater's were out for a Thursday which always makes things interesting. We came to Rivers Edge Marina which is about a mile and a half up the San Sebastian River from the ICW. There was a bunch of current and wind combined with a slightly restricted space to maneuver which made the docking somewhat exciting. So I made a last second change to go bow first into a double wide slip beside a sailboat instead of trying to back into this spot. After getting everything done, we walked into town. First to the Ice Plant, which was a very cool re-purposed building that now houses a restaurant and a distillery. From here, we continued on past Flagler College, City Hall and the Plaza before stopping at Harry's Seafood for dinner. The place was packed and it wasn't hard to understand why, it was very good. Tomorrow we're doing the trolley tour! Track and photos - www.ramblr.com/web/mymap/trip/273527/977079