Northern Florida 2 St Augustine (mile 8602)

I know what I'll have to make when I get home... We visit St Augustine - an important historic town. There are a lot of well preserved buildings and the local college (university) is in a really well preserved set of buildings built I believe by Henry Flagler - he was a partner with Rockefeller's venture into oil and owned the railroad that supplied the town- he must have been worth a bob or two! He built the Alcazar hotel which was a the height of luxury, in 1888. It was bought by Otto Lightner a publisher from Chicago in 1947, he was an avid collector of lots of things, he bought the hotel to store his "stuff" in. In due course it becomes a museum which John and I visit serendipitously. Here are some shots from it.
At the entrance is a reminder of our mortality and the role of fate in our lives.

Ah well, it will be what it will be then... Ironically (which perhaps the Americans don't get) the Museum also offers space in an adjacent wing to a number of government and city offices, including the register of berths and marriages and where you register deaths. I wonder... maybe there is someone with a sense of irony.
In the meantime we continue our browsing.
The first exhibit is a massive grandfather clock - british. John has made clocks as a hobby, cutting the cogwheels using a homebuilt CNC machine, He is now interested in Kinetic art which gets a boost in St Augustine as well.

Two grandfathers

I am, interested in the clocks ability to show the phases of the moon - far harder than you might imagine - I had once worked out the rato of teeth in the cogwheels in an ordinary clock and as an ocean navigator have studied moon tables. It is very hard to get accurate moon phases, it could double the compexity of the clock if done accurately. (and would still lose "time" a wee bit.) It takes 19 years for the moon to get roughly back to the same position in the sky - the moon wobbles up and down, speeds up and slows down and moves further away and closer to the earth in beautiful complex paths... << geek mode off >>

The moon phase is in the top pf the glass window.

The other clock that impresses me, also British, is in the Hermitage in St Petersburg, it has a mechanical peacock that struts its stuff on the hour.

There are other mechanical gadgets that obviously took Flagers fancy too.

Note the scale by the size of the normal/small drafting tools in the background.

Building engines is also what old retired engineers should do - I am interested in Stirling engines that convert any source of heat into motion, they deserve to be rediscovered and used with solar collectors (and concentrators)

There is also a collection of word processors ... ( typewriters, or stenographer machinery.)

We spent little time viewing the vases, the jewelry, even the paintings but here are a few other things that grabbed my eye.

Funny American bank notes, that became worthless, banks always seem to have a heads they win, tails you lose approach to money. 

I wonder how many Americans are born with silver spoons in their mouths.

He had a thing about shells too - some of these are massive

I set my watch beside these, I can recall a black and white film where a deep sea diver gets his foot trapped in one of these. 

The other thing in the museum that tickles me is a collection of chairs - I once photographed (and sat in) 150 chairs in a special exhibition in the Design museum in Copenhagen when yachting there in a previous cruise. Thanks Shirley for your patience!

Here is one for fat people (ahmm, no comment)

Hand carved wood.  These last two shots remind me of a visit I had in Romania, to the Summer Palace. The chair and table there were Indian and had taken three generations to make. Gob smacking when you think of it.

Well, they have to use up the horns somehow. Wouldn't be in good taste now I suspect

This isn't actually in the exhibition - it is just a modern chair for the staff to sit in. It is see through, but I don't see it myself.

Finally there is a collection of music making machines - a large collection actually, and we are told that there is a demonstration and talk at 11 o'clock which we attend.

There are machines that take punched cards, or cyclinders with pins sticking out or copper discs with holes in them. One machine has a violin and a piana, there is also a "Monkey grinder machine"

I am old enough to have used punched cards to program computers - one card for each line of a FORTRAN or PLAN program, I then moved onto paper tape - also full of holes...Nostalgia ain't what it used to be...

 We miss "fika" ("Elevensuses" in Belfast speak) but manage to use the museum cafe, no pastries but I rough it with chocolate fudge cake and cream.

After coffee we continue our tour of the town

John is wearing a T-Shirt promoting his son's most excellent company and he has been tasked to get photos of it in lots of places.
We also wonder if Peter Kirby Smith - one of my Atlantic crossing and Caribbean crew has been here before us.

The one on the right is a "Kirby Smth"
The buildings are lovely

The smaller buildings are now designed to make money out of tourists, eat, drink or buy. If you can't beat them join them, we have a Guinness and a Harp (and food) at the Irish pub that evening.

In one of the tourist shops, John spots a kindred spirit selling beard grooming instruments and it may be a foothold for his son Adam to get a distributor for his Belfast Beard oils and Combs.

We also visit an art gallery that is displaying backlit - almost flourescent "paintings" (some are doctored photos) not our cup of tea, but they also have exhibits with moving parts - gladdens the heart of any engineer.

The cogwheels turn (but don't do anything)

I suggest John goes home and makes some clock like kinetic art arrangements with edge lighting and flourescent marker pens on acrylic wheels and sends one to the Gallery on sale or return - let the gallery set the price and give John half the money, I wouldn't want more than 10% for the idea... As the gallery sells some of its works at high 5 figure sums this might be a good wee earner!
Finally, every town has a castle or fort and St Augustine is no exception, we baulk at paying to get in and are too tired to storm the battlements and it doesn't look very impressive (John lives near Carrickfegrus and I live near Winterfell...)

They have a nice selection of cannon (some of the might be morters or named something else) They look so good I thought they had been hammer-rited or maybe "Repro" rather then Renovated but I am wrong, they are orginal.

We depart St Augustine well rested and sail outside for the run up the coast towards Brunswick. Getting out the entrance is made interesting by three dredgers and tugs, and associated floating pipes going everywhere, but by calling them on the radio they direct us to a safe route past them, We anchor twice on the way to Brunswick, at Little  Tiger Island and just off Jeckyl Island where we go ashore and have an interesting time. Jeckyl Island is my 100th stop since departing Belfast. See the next blog