Holidays in St Augustine | Boating Journey

Holidays in St Augustine | Boating Journey

Uh okay I’m not sure what we just witnessed it was horrible it was horrible and horrible I’ve got to let my stomach settle let’s go find lunch you’re hungry I will be a little bit I need a drink probably for the food welcome to boating Journey I’m Scott and

She’s Ally we own two boats in the Pacific Northwest but have recently found ourselves boatless after moving to Southern Florida we moved to be closer to different boating opportunities and the Caribbean our favorite boating destination our goals are to explore the Florida waters bring you some new boat

Tours and hopefully find our next boat so come along and follow us on our boating Journey hi everyone so we are back on the road again and this weekend we’re in St Augustine Florida which is north about TS about with stops 5 hours to get here we’re all bundled up and we did

That on purpose because we wanted to exper experience the holidays which just a little chillier yeah it’s a little cooler here which is funny cuz it’s really only in the’ 60s still cold us cold to us so we are staying right here on the water which is fantastic We Are

Tonight going to do a ghost tour then tomorrow we’ll check out the fort and all of like a little bit of the history of St Augustine and then the big thing that people come to see are the lights yes and this is Christmas weekend uh we

Head back home on Christmas Eve so we’re pretty excited there’s a h big pirate ship going by so maybe Scott will grab that for real for you real quick and uh so come along and check out St Augustine here you go yeah well this is very nice

View of the city look like we’re in uh Austria yeah and then do this wrap around oh yeah we have a whole little porch thing yeah look at that it’s very yeah you have water on that side oh yeah it’s very um oh yeah you do have

Water very Le worth yeah perfect for Christmas see there’s the water well this is going to be festive so just a quick tour oh yes I am hilon on Earth so you got a little king-size bed looks lovely and of course we have a little coffee station we have a fridge big

Closet big shower very nice bathroom very nice we got a very nice upgrade is it very nice it’s very nice it’s very nice it’s very nice and the music out there is very nice too so far this place has been really cool look how cute this is so we’re on a little

Cobblestone Road it’s like sensory overload don’t know where to look at this point there’s just so much and the where we this came from it’s going to be all lit up so now we’re just kind of um looking for like these are all really old buildings now I have been to St

Augustine 50 years ago it tells you how old I am so now we’re just uh getting ready to try to find a place to eat and check out this well you can see the Cobblestone Road it’s probably like one of The Originals it’s just very very cute got to Come what you think what you think he came and asked for a tree oh how sweet St Augustine founded on September 8th 1565 is the oldest continuously inhabited Europe European established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States the city served as the capital of Spanish Florida for over 200

Years it was designated as the capital of British East Florida when the colony was established in 1763 however Great Britain returned Florida to Spain in 1783 Florida was seated to the United States in 1819 St Augustine is part of Florida’s first coast region and the Jacksonville metropolitan area since the late 19th

Century St Augustine’s distinctive historical character has made the city a tourist attraction Castillo D San Marcos the city’s 17th century Spanish Fort constructed out of the sedentary Rock coina continues to attract tourists today so we’re in the colonial quarters and what I do love about it you know

Again this is the oldest city in America and they’ve really done a great job kind of explaining what each building even if it’s being used as a gift shop this was built prior 1761 and again you can see this is all Coral y so this is a national uh register of historic

Places as night fell on our first day and before what we thought would be a scary ghost adventure we took in the lights of the historic town square and and enjoyed an adult beverage made from Woodenville whiskey a bit of flavor from our old Hometown I have a one corner so we’re on

This ghost tour this not our first ghost tour but let me show you how beautiful so you got your horses this is where we’re staying this is the water front front it’s hard to see I need to get caught up but how it’s I wish you could totally see this it’s so

Pretty this is why we came here after an hour and a half of walking around the historic district we wrapped up the ghost tour at the local Cemetery it wasn’t too scary and no ghosts were seen maybe we’ll have better luck next time well we got done with the tour and now

We’re back kind of in what would you call this like uh again another little leevon wor right kind of cool auggy draft it’s a self served cat M that’s cute that seems dangerous and a cute little dog oh so cute yeah they kind of made it like uh

The old just what it might have looked like Look pretty much like Key West St Augustine offers plenty of live music around every corner it was a great way to end our first day in town well good morning everyone it is day two here in St Augustine you’ll notice that the fort is behind us the

Sun is on us it feels great a little warmer today than yesterday but still it’s nice having some fresh air which we’re not used to uh we did do the ghost tour last night unfortunately it is not what I would recommend yeah we didn’t see any ghosts well it wasn’t that but

Today we’re going to check out some museums check out the fort and uh explore a little farther into St Augustine located on the western shore of matanzas bay the Castillo D San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States it was designed by the Spanish engineer ignasio

Daza with construction beginning in 1672 107 years after the city’s founding by the Spanish the fort’s construction was ordered by the local Governor after a raid by the English Privateer Robert Sur in 1668 that destroyed much of St Augustine and damaged the existing wooden fort the construction of the core

Of the current Fortress was completed in 1695 however it would undergo many alterations and Renovations over the centuries the tidle toilet oh my God that’s funny well smart though wow oh wish they had umbrellas back then I just say oh fighting the British you and your family are

Protected in the Fortress but then you look over the wall and you see your entire town on fire all your homes destroyed and as it says here the fort really wasn’t made to House people no it had a few rooms to house a guard on duty

But that was it no no real living quarters so the fort was designated a US States Army base in 1821 and renamed Fort Maran in honor of American Revolutionary War hero Francis Marian the fort was declared a national monument in 1924 and after 251 years of continuous military possession was deactivated in

1933 the site was turned over to the United States National Park Service in 1942 and the original name Castillo D Marcos was restored by an act of Congress although built in part by African slaves owned by the Spanish the fort later served as one of the first entry points of fugitive

Slaves from British North America into Spanish Florida where they were freed by the Spanish Colonial authorities this quickly led to the first free black settlement in the future United States you know one thing I was surprised about is it’s not a huge Fort no but the grounds are huge I mean if

You look behind me yeah the surrounding grounds and again we can’t imagine what it would have been like 200 300 years ago yeah they came in in 1492 the Spaniards yep and it’s changed hands to the British back to the Spaniards back to the US 1452 I think oh 52 I thought

It was 92 either way either way that’s a long time ago and what’s incredible is the Cannons all have these enor aort what do you call them ornamental ornamental okay I made up a new word aort uh ornamental um designs on them even though they were deadly weapons and

If you can imagine I’m going to turn this around but I mean this is the kind of stuff they’re you know they just stood out here there more of their grounds just looking for the enemy to come in from over there crazy I mean even on this this side the grounds are

Huge they’ve kept it very well protected I will say I’m a little weirded out that there’s these openings and they go straight down to the moat so kind of kind of freaked out but let’s go up here here you get kind of a pretty good view well hello pigeon

Right you feel the FR CL I can’t imagine your hands back then would have just been ripped apart dealing with this it is wild yeah I think this is the first time I’ve actually seen shells okay so we just finished the tour of the fort behind us and now we’re

Headed to the our pirate treasure Museum oh yeah let’s check it out that is not the kind of eye doctor that I want to go to oh my God biting biting down on the leather why is he taking his eyeball out go sleep got to PA journal with him trusty me for

Protection oh jeez that’s Cool you what’ you think of the uh pirate well I learned that they’re mean and horrible people they were horrible horrible horrible people I mean like the one where they put them in a cage and they tarred them and then they hung them out there until well that was the pirate

That got done that was done to the pirate oh yeah so but then they let his Rotting Flesh sit out there for other Sailors to see in the cage but yeah they did all four different types of tor torture oh it’s disgusting I mean now I

Heard there’s I’m glad we live now than we did I would never have survived 300 years ago now there’s a Torture Museum should we go look for it sure okay let’s go see the great thing about uh so this is our hotel right here and it’s the

Backside but they have all these little Cobblestone roads and they just interconnect to all of the um different shopping restaurants here I’ll give you a look here and everything’s like really cutely decorated too like this is another restaurant I don’t know what it’s called This is called oh the drunken horse

Are you brave Enough uh okay I’m not sure what we just witnessed if you don’t like G things don’t go to the medieval I mean it was uh it’s a it’s amazing what we humans are capable of doing to each other it was horrible it was horrible and and so

We’re not going to show you any of the even though it’s just reenacts obviously it’s not live it it was fairly graphic inside and I don’t think we should I’ve got to let my stomach settle we might have a picture or two here that we can

Kind of show you maybe some of the tools but it was it was interesting High interesting and what s is some of those torture things are still being used today yeah so yeah anyway sorry my footage of that uh let’s go find lunch you’re

Hungry I will be in a little bit I need a drink probably for the food so so we’re here at The City Gate Distillery going to try some free tastings check it out can’t go wrong with The Distillery tastings we have and it smells delicious yeah it’s more of a flavored it’s got

Like flavored distilled Spirits rather than just got like rum we’ve got cookie dough whiskey that actually sounds good they’ve got orange and cream moonshine White Lightning moonshine my name is Janelle and I’m to you guys out here that the peanut butter one this is the sweet right

Sweet next up we got a little B of orang and it does it’ll mess you up though so this is orange and cream moonshine let’s see oh my God it tastes like a cream CLE Orange deadly so we went into the Distillery and we bought salted caramel

After we tried how many we tried how many did we triy 10 10 and feeling good I didn’t I had you if you don’t you got to ask for a half core I actually that’s what I did the half cores but definitely we were in and out of there in what a half

Hour if that now we’re that long back on George Street I think it’s called St George Street is it cute yeah we’re definitely coming back here our last historical site was the country’s oldest Wooden Schoolhouse built sometime around 1716 the schoolhouse features a class in session explaining much of its

History per can move to with the old one of the more interesting items was a new paper clipping hanging on the wall showing a class reunion in 1931 of the last graduating class from 1864 the building is encircled by a large chain placed there in 1937 to help

Anchor It To The Ground in case of a hurricane we ended our day and our visit listening to a fantastic Bluegrass rockabilly band playing on the street corner below our Veranda so we’re enjoying this band but I want to tip them and I have to come all the way out

The hotel and then come back around to see if they have a QR code or if I can just tip him and here’s Scott our room hang on and that’s the B after Ally tipped them they put our sticker on their drum case so cool are you having fun fantastic this

Band down here playing a little blueg grass country fantastic out of North Carolina two what a fun trip wow yeah we haven’t even been here 48 hours no and it’s Christmas Eve and when you’re watching this it’s January or February but what a fun um I definitely am coming back it

Has kind of a we’re from a little um Seattle has a little town called leworth it’s a little Bavarian Village and this reminded me a lot of very much like that and especially they really go all out for the holidays so um the pros of coming here during the holidays is

Beautiful they’ve decked everything out they’ve got little side alleys the con is is crowded there lots of people we couldn’t even find a place to eat last night we ended up eating at our hotel um lots of families very crowded lots of families so I think I would like to

Maybe come back in the kind of WI yeah off seon I guess probably in the summer time maybe they still kind of decorate it with lights I I just don’t think with the Christmas things so and it also reminds us a little bit of New Orleans

So like right now this is dead quiet but last night it was a hustlet and a bus oh yeah so uh I love this town and I’m definitely looking forward to coming back so if you haven’t been to St Augustine I definitely recommend it it’s about the same distance just slightly

Longer than Key West come check it out we also recommend you do stay downtown so thank you to the Hilton for upgrading us we stayed right here on the water not a paid indorsement no uh but we were able to we we paid for our room uh but

We were able to walk everywhere and if we had to come back to the room in the middle of the day we could so I definitely recommend that traffic into this area is is a nightmare yeah so parking is a nightmare parking is a nightmare so definitely stay downtown

Would be the other recommendation I would have so we’ll be back we’ll be back thanks everyone if you like this video please give it a thumbs up leave your comments down below more importantly what uh hit the Subscribe button and uh we will see you next time

This week we head to St. Augustine FL to enjoy the holidays and the Nights of Lights. We had a ghost tour, enjoyed great food, did a distillery tasting , explored the fort and other historical sites. This is definitely a city we recommend to visit as it is the oldest city in the US. The history is fascinating. We loved seeing the Nights of Lights during the holidays.

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Cheers, Scott and Ally

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00:00 Introduction
01:50 Room Tour at Hilton
03:32 Art District
04:37 Nights of Lights
08:11 Castillo Fort
13:12 Pirate Museum
16:00 Medieval Torture Museum
17:25 City Distillery Tasting
19:07 Oldest School in the US