Oyster Creek

Oyster Creek Marina, Saint Augustine Florida, 29 53 14 N, 81 19 34 W

We wanted to put into a marina for a day to do laundry and showers. Our friends Chris and June said that they spent a week at Oyster Creek Marina recently. That's a good reccomendation, so here we are.

When we got here we found so many friendly people and the location seems so good that we signed up for a week's stay. The weekly dock rate here ($6/foot) isn't bad. The electricity price $5.50 per day is sky high. Tarwathie uses only 0.6 kilowatt-hours per day, so the $5.50 fee is nearly 50 times their cost. Ouch.

Oh well. I think we'll have fun here. Saint Augustine sounds like a great place to be a tourist. For today however, we're luxuriating in the pleasures of dockside life. This is our first night at a real marina since Little Creek Virginia in early November. Here we have electricity, fresh water, showers and more. I washed down everything exterior on Tarwathie with fresh water. Then we went and showered ourselves in warm fresh water. Tonight we even get to wash dishes in fresh water. What luxuries.

By the way. This morning we saw a sailboat at anchor with a 30 foot wooden extension ladder stowed on deck. That must win tthe prize as the most inappropriate item of boat equipment I ever saw. I recall trying to handle such ladders with three firemen. Ugh.

Another by the way. Several of my friends will recognize the name Oyster Creek. Besides the marina, the name describes one of G.E.'s earliest boiling water reactor nuclear power plants. I was at Oyster Creek once during construction. I was told that the construction workers, as they exited the gate on paydays, would have to drop fistfulls of cash into the open windows of three black limos parked outside. Tsk tsk. Crime is less flagrantly obvious today.