Flamenco in St. Augustine

May 18, 2007 Friday
Here are a few more pictures of the ICW trip.
A lot of the canals on the ICW have homes on them, most with docks.
But sometimes we go right through big cities like Daytona Beach.
Here we are coming into St. Augustine. This is the South Anchorage with the cityscape behind it.
No tourist town would be complete without a traditional sailing boat taking out day-trippers. This is Freedom.
They are rebuilding the most famous bridge, the Bridge of Lions. It was deemed structurally unsafe and so the city raised many millions to rebuild it instead of just replacing it with another bridge. It is one of the city's major landmarks and a beautiful structure. It will take several years to complete and unfortunately the construction is right next to our marina. Fortunately, we got another slip further from the noise and it isn't bad now.
One of the amazing things about this marina is that the currents through it can run up to 6 knots. At peak, the water roars past the boat. That means that every move has to be planned around the tides. On the other hand, the marina is totally comfortable and they are going to let us store our bikes in an inside room so that we don't have to leave them outside. Last night we were having wine in the cockpit with friends and about 8 dolphin were swimming off our stern, feeding on mullet. They would chase the mullet and catch them with a leap to our cheers. There are so many mullet that tomorrow I am going to take our dip net and net a few right under the dock. Sometimes they just boil all around the boat. I'm curious how they fry!
We have been marketing ourselves as flamenco artists with a very good reception. Last night we went out to dinner with our friend, Eric. In the process, we played at three different restaurants. The first was an "open mike" where we made the audience stop talking for the first time since we got there. Nice reception. Then we went to a tapas bar where we now have a gig lined up for tomorrow night. Finally we went to the local Spanish restaurant and stirred things up with them. I think we're going to see a lot of action. This town has lots of musicians. Hurricane Katrina caused a lot of New Orleans musicians to migrate here and they never left. But we don't have too much competition in the flamenco world. We hope to meet the local dancers to see if we can put on some collaborations. This is serious fun!
Late update: we got a regular gig at the Tasting Room, a splendid tapas bar and wine tasting. Just the kind of place I like!
We will be in St. Augustine until early June. I will be doing boat projects during the day and flamenco at night. Don't be afraid to call or email.