St. Augustine, FL - Day 3

Greg tried everything he could to get our dinghy motor running, but it defeated his efforts.  By noon, he gave up and called a mechanic who came to the marina and took it to his shop.  Turned out that the fuel, which contained ethanol, had become contaminated and messed up the carburetor.  So, the mechanic is rebuilding the carburetor, and Greg bought a new gas can, which he will fill with ethanol-free gasoline.  We hope to be on our way tomorrow as soon as we get the dinghy motor back, but right now we are not confident that the weather will be our friend. 

The day started out absolutely beautiful.  I took photos of the sunrise and sipped my tea in the cockpit.

This photo was taken prior to sunrise, around 6 am.  I took another one about 45 minutes later which was also quite nice.  It's posted on FaceBook.

After breakfast, and before working on the dinghy motor, I cooked a hot breakfast of eggs, sausage, and grits.  Then we tackled the unsuccessful attempt to get the dinghy motor running.  At 10 am I took the dogs ashore on the water taxi and walked them along the St. Augustine seawall up to and around the Fort, then through a residential neighborhood West of the old section of town.  I felt like I was walking in Del Ray (our old neighborhood in Alexandria)...the homes were very similar.  When I found King Street, I headed East and came back to the Marina and took the noon water taxi back to the boat.  Before boarding the water taxi, I looked over and realized that from where I was standing, there was a beautiful view of Bridge of Lions Bridge:

We took the 2 pm water taxi back out to the Marina for showers and a walk through town, including another visit to West Marine for the new gas can.  It started raining before we got back for the 4 pm water taxi back to the boat, and by the time we boarded the bottom fell out and it rained hard, complete with thunder and lightening, for a solid 3 hours.

So we are spending a quiet evening on board listening to the pitter-patter of rain on the deck, thinking about what tomorrow will bring......