Before the St. John's River

We enjoyed our short stay in Ft. Pierce with its great Saturday Farmers' Market, its pet friendly parks and meeting up with the homeless guy we used to chat with.  His favorite line, "I may be homeless but I'm not stupid" poured from his lips again!  We repeat it often just because ....

Thank you, Dick Jones

We had heard about Jones' Fruit Dock in North Vero Beach, owned by 96 year old Dick Jones, who offers dockage at his ancient dock on the Indian River for $20 ($3.00 for power and very sulfur smelling water) and knew we had to check out this institution. The Jones family grew citrus for generations and many of their neighbors sold their land to developers, except for Dick Jones.  He is giving his land to the state of FL as a preservation and conservation area.   Dick was in the hospital but a neighbor helped us tie up to the dock and showed us where to leave the $20.  The country road was pleasant to walk on and even had a watering station for dogs. Now that's totally different from what we've encountered in southern Florida!

Jones' Fruit Dock

No sulfur for the dogs!

We were sorry we didn't meet Dick Jones and sign his logbook but we needed to move on.  We settled in to a free town dock in Cocoa, Fl next to a park for Buddy.  Cocoa is a cute town with restaurants and ice cream shops. Many folks walk by the boat to fish or chat, among those were two firemen killing time on their duty who warned us about the "types of folks" who hang out at the park at night.  We locked our doors that night and didn't hear any one rustling about...something to consider...

Cocoa park with lots of folks enjoying the day

Cocoa is close to the Kennedy Space Center and we debated about visiting it.  We opted to skip it for now because Pete has been there and we needed to rent a car from somewhere to get there.  It sounded like it was developing into a hassle so we promised to visit it another time when we have access to a car.
That night we anchored in Rockhouse Creek with a catamaran who recognized us from Ft. Myers.  Buddy had an island to romp on and we had plenty of noseeums-those hungry little devils! It was a peaceful night and we were off the next day to the Matanzas Rver where Fort Matanzas stands.  It was constructed in 1740 by the Spanish to protect the southern water access to St. Ausustine.  We tried to tour it with Buddy but again, no dags allowed so we went back to the boat and observed it from there.  That night we dragged anchor so at 3 AM we were up with engine running and dropping anchor closer to the fort.  Always something added to our adventure...

Fort Matanzas

Fort Matanzas is only 12 miles from St. Augustine so we arrived early in the day, giving us plenty of time to explore the city with Buddy before tackling it without him.  St. Augustine is the oldest continually occupied city settled by Europeans in the United States and retains that European atmosphere with its architecture and narrow streets.  We did the tourist bus ride to Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, a Spanish fort built in 1695 that changed hands often between the French, Spanish and English. Of course we had to visit the oldest wooden school house complete with student with a real Dunce cap...those were the good old days!
St. Augustine is a beautiful stop that shouldn't be missed. 

moats and bridges

Lots of cannons!

Cobblestone narrow streets

Flagler College

Beautiful architecture of Flagler College

 Henry Flagler is a BIG name in Florida.  He earned his money with the Rockefeller's with Standard Oil and began investing in tourism in Florida in the late 1880's.  He built the Ponce de Leon Hotel with heat and bathrooms and charged $90 a night ($2000 in today's money) and patrons had to pay for four months...I guess that left many folks out.  Now the hotel is home to Flagler College- an absolutely beautiful campus... lucky students!

Oldest wooden school-of course we HAD to visit this

Ponce de Leon landed here

We visited the Ponce de Leon Archeological Park in search of the Fountain of Youth. I'm sure your not surprised to learn there were many other people there looking for it too.  We did find little white paper cups with smelly Florida water there that is said to be the water Ponce de Leon found.  He thought this water was special because the Indians he met here were seven feet tall and had muscles to fill out their frames.  He
figured the wa
ter was the ticket to looking like that.  I had a cup...I'll let you know what happens!

Florida work ethic:  "Open when we get here-Closed when we leave"