Day 334 - Still in St. Augustine, FL

     

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    		The motor yacht "Integrity" The Loop

    Day 334 - Sunday, March 26th: Today was our last day in St. Augustine, so we begged a ride from Marlys and Mike (Ahzmyrah) in their rental car.  We went to the grocery store, Wal-Mart and Home Depot to re-provision.  When we returned, Mike, who is a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary and qualified to perform "Coast Guard Courtesy Inspections," did an inspection of Integrity.

    There were a couple of tourist attractions that we had not yet seen.  One was the St. Augustine Lighthouse; it's quite pretty:

    There is the obligatory spiral stair inside.  Fortunately, they have installed benches at intervals on the way:

    At the top is the light and the special Fresnel lens:

    This is what such a lens looks like.  It's designed to focus the light into a very narrow beam that shines out toward the horizon.  They are amazingly effective:

    From the top, one has a commanding view of both the land side and the beach side.  The lighthouse is actually on Anastasia Island, east of St. Augustine proper:

    Now that you have seen the lighthouse scenes, we must tell you that we didn't go up in the lighthouse.  The pictures are all those of our friend Roxanne, who did go.

    While Bill was socializing on the boat, Ruth took the shuttle bus to the "Alligator Farm."  While waiting for the bus, she snapped a picture of these lovely Sharpei dogs:

    The Alligator farm is actually a research facility with dozens of alligators, crocodiles and bird varieties:

    It's amazing how many different kinds of alligators and crocodiles there are.  They have a collection of albino alligators that they breed here:

    Some specimens are rather large:

    And there are a lot of them!

    And there is "Gomek." He was a BIG fellow:

    And, he was a bit intimidating.  When he was alive:

    Here's an unusual crocodile; notice his very narrow snout:

    There was something about this fellow that was unusual as well…

    Oh, yes, they have tortoises also:

    Huge tortoises.  You can't tell from this picture, but these guys weigh hundreds of pounds:

    There are also dozens of tropical birds; some are very colorful:

    In the middle of this picture is a bird performing his mating dance.  His plumage is beautiful:

    Ruth returned to the boat fairly exhausted.  We had a quiet happy hour and planned our departure with Roxanne and Lenny (Summertime).

Position tonight: N29 53.519 W081 18.561

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