Christmas in Sarasota

We continued to explore Sarasota after Sarah and Joe left for Michigan visits.  Walks on Siesta Key
beach, dinghy exploration of the channels and homes along the keys, re-provisioning, etc.

Siesta Key:

Julie and her Mom at Siesta Key back in the day...the 60's

 

Dinghy ride

 

 The marina is probably the nicest physical facility we have been to.  Modern floating docks, all types of maintenance/repair services on site, pump outs in the slip, a short walk across the Tamiami Trail to town.  Lots, and I mean lots! of restaurants and shops.  Three restaurants right at the  marina!  Nice, but one cannot afford to stay too long as the rates are a bit pricey. Definitely worth a stop here. And a fourth just around the marina...O'Leary's Tiki Bar:

Speaking of maintenance, we are having some isinglass repaired and are currently trying to source a rather rare hot water heater.  No one has a 20 gal, 240V, horizontal configuration in stock.  It may be two to three weeks to get the water heater we are told.   Oh well, we have been stuck in a lot worse places!

 

We were only able to get a 10 day slip assignment as there is a huge fireworks display and party for New Years right here.  So we are moving to Longboat Key Moorings across the bay starting Jan 30 for a few days (maybe more as noted above).
Courtney is staying at Julie's mom's house for a few weeks here in Sarasota so we have been visiting him every day or so.  He graciously allowed us use of his car which makes our re-provisioning and other errands so convenient.  Thanks so much Courtney!
We went to St. Martha's parish Mass on Christmas Eve.  The older Italian priest was quite a character.  In fact, after he welcomed all and wished everyone a Merry Christmas his line was..." I have a secret for you all" and quietly said "we are open for business every Sunday!".   We thought that was a quite clever way to remind folks!  He also said he was an IBM priest.   Italian Big Mouth.  What a character.
Anyway had a great Italian meal downtown afterwards and even listened to a Christian rock band doing a church service and Christmas songs in the park for a few minutes on our walk home (to the boat).

Christmas Eve full moon back at the boat:

 

 

 

On Christmas morning we drove to Lido Key and walked the beach (did Siesta Key the day before).  These are some of the best beaches around in our opinion.  Great walking beaches, we took over an hour walk on each!  Best of both worlds, a little exercise and a great view along the shore!
Gary and Cindy's favorite spot on Lido;

Courtney invited us for a delicious Christmas dinner he had graciously prepared.  He had planned on a couple other people to attend but they both had last minute complications and could not.  So there was plenty of leftovers for Courtney!  Thanks again Courtney!
On Sat we explored the downtown area including the farmer's market.  We went over to Payne Park which was home to a major league baseball team spring training for years and years up to the late 80's (the White Sox were the last team to practice here).  The field is gone but the hotel once owned by the baseball team is still standing and serves as administrative offices for the city.  The Payne family deeded the land to the city and stipulated that it be a public park if no major league baseball team held spring training there.  It is a beautiful area today. The park is right where Julie's grandmother lived for years in a trailer park.   Julie has been coming to Sarasota since she was 2 years old so has witnessed many of these changes.  She recalled going to sit in the hotel lobby with her Mom and Dad to watch all the baseball players enter and exit.  She also remembered going down the street for ice cream as well as feeding peanuts to the squirrels in the park.

 

 

 

On Sunday Dec 27, our good friends Rich and Paula and their daughter Maggie stopped in for a visit as they were in Florida for a family vacation. It is great having friends visit and again we encourage you to keep track of our whereabouts and contact us if our paths will cross....we'd love to have you aboard! Anyway, we took a great boat ride and Courtney and one of the Sarasota neighbors, Cindy, joined us. 

Unfortunately, no dolphins....sorry Maggie!  The Kohlers helped us wash the salt off the boat and then we all had a great grilled dinner aboard.  We all retired fairly early and the Kohlers had to be on their way around 9 AM on Monday.  It was such a pleasure seeing them and having them aboard.  Safe travels Kohlers.
On Monday I finally found a hot water heater in stock in Connecticut.  It will take a week to get here due to the Holiday so I guess I'd better get busy and make a reservation to stay longer in Sarasota....
Thanks for following us....Happy New Year to all.

So Excited to have Family Aboard! Clearwater, St Pete and Sarasota.

We made the 20 or so mile trip from Tarpon Springs to Clearwater Beach marina on Sunday Dec 13.  As directed by the Turtle Cove staff we waited until we had some tide come in as I am sure our props were sitting in the mud at low tide there.   Just took our time and enjoyed the inter coastal activity along the way. 
It was pretty windy so we had some salt deposits upon arrival.  We sterned in next to Job Site a beautiful Sea Ray sedan bridge from Bay Harbor.  We last ran into them at Aqua Marine at the head of the Tenn Tom back in Oct.  They had been here a couple weeks and loved it....and after spending three days here we agreed! 

Short walk to a wonderful sandy beach, lots of shops, restaurants, etc.

So after our arrival and washing the boat, we got our showers done and Sarah and Joe arrived from Bellingham WA to join us for a whole week.  It is so nice to have them aboard as our first guests!!

And as we said a little earlier, Clearwater is very nice and we just kept extending our stay one day at a time.  Sarah and Joe's friend Matt Fletcher showed up in Clearwater with his fiance' Meg.  This was a surprise to all as they had not announced it publically until then!  Congratulations Matt and Meg!

We left for St Pete on Wed.  Leaving Clearwater: A shot from Matt and Meg's room at the hotel.

Had a great 40 mile (or so) trip under warm sunny skies with little wind.  We had hoped to see many dolphins and were not disappointed!  In fact at one time we had in excess of six swimming in our wakes....some under the bow sprit and others along the side of the boat.  And it even included one juvenile dolphin who was keeping up with the others just fine.  Sarah and Joe taking pictures and videos of the dolphins.  What a day on Tampa Bay!

 

Our original destination was the municipal marina but they only had one night available.  So we decided the Renaissance Vinoy Resort (a Marriott managed property) marina would suffice...:>)
Boy, what a place. A storied past, refurbished to it's former grandeur in the 90's.  Opened in 1925, occupied by the military in WWII, closed in the 70's, occupied by the homeless and rodents for years, then finally refurbished as noted.  Wow.  From the glory days:

Today with Sum Escape in the foreground

 

Huge outdoor pool and hot tubs, great exercise and spa facilities, etc.  All available to the marina guest as well.  Sarah and Joe used the exercise facilities and Joe set a personal best on the treadmill running a half marathon before we left on Sunday morning! 
And with our Marriott member number, $2 a foot (same as Clearwater Beach and other marinas with many less amenities).  Oh Nancy C, there were great hair dryers in the shower facilities!!  You better stop here!
And wouldn't you know it, we got "stuck" here due to the wind and large waves on Tampa Bay.  We were going to stay 2 nights and ended up staying 5...what a sacrifice! 

Beautiful Christmas tree at Vinoy.

The Dali museum in St Pete was really interesting.  We did not know anything about this surrealist artist until visiting the museum.  What detail and creativity!  You should take the couple hours to do this museum if in the area.  It is amazing art.

 

We found many great restaurants in St Pete.  The marinas are right in the heart of it all.  St Pete is a little out of the way via the Loop, but in our opinion, a very worthwhile trip off the regular route. 

 

At the Canopy restaurant overlooking the park and Christmas tree.

 

Lots of condos downtown for possible future exploration too...seems like a pretty vibrant city.
On Fri night and Sat we found out the downside to the Vinoy marina....easterly component winds and a strong surge in the harbor.  So we checked the weather and noted continued strong east winds.  The wave forecast was only three footers on Tampa Bay, so we set out at 9:30 AM for Sarasota, Marina Jack to escape the surge.  It turned out to be a good choice.  Tampa Bay was a following sea, but the auto pilot and 2100 RPM (16 MPH or so with the wave action) was a great formula to get under the Sunshine Skyway and on to Anna Maria Island inlet into the intercoastal again.

 

 

 

 

Coming into Sarasota

 

It would have been nice to show Sarah and Joe more travelling along the Great Loop, but the cities we visited were fun and we found plenty to do.  And they at least had two travel days with us to see what a typical day of travel is like.   It was likely enough for them as 10MPH is pretty slow for a 30 something.  But they did enjoy the dolphin shows!  Oh, and as Joe pointed out, they did about 1% of the Loop!
When we arrived at Marina Jacks, the boat was full of salt as the 15 knot winds kicked up significant spray our entire trip.  So we sent Sarah and Joe off to enjoy a late lunch and Julie and I ate a quick sandwich and then scrubbed the boat.  Courtney joined us in the evening for dinner at Marina Jack....it was very good and a piano bar to boot.  View from the boat at Marina Jack.

 

Dinner crew:

 

On Monday we enjoyed a dinghy ride around Bird Key....and actually through the canal through the middle.

Even dinghyed over to O'Leary's Tiki Bar for lunch!

 

 

 

We sent Joe and Sarah off on the Marina Jack courtesy shuttle to the airport around 3 PM on Monday.

 

Tuesday brought a work day and a quiet boat...we miss the kids already!  But our time in Sarasota will be great visiting Courtney and exploring the city.  Thanks for following us.  Merry Christmas to all!!





 

 

The Gulf Crossing...What a Great Experience!

Carrabelle is a small old Florida city.  We took some nice walks and enjoyed nice 70 degree weather for the three days we were there.  The Moorings marina staff was kind and courteous but one could tell the complex of condos, hotel and marina was past its prime.  Tough economic conditions clearly contributed to the decline.  Too bad because it was a pretty nice spot on the river.  Not a place we would have wanted to spend more time at though....so fortunately our crossing weather window opened and we left at noon on Wed.  Leaving Carrabelle

OK, I will admit it, I was quite apprehensive about a pitch black darkness 170 mile journey.  Julie as always just took it in stride and said "Don't worry about it, it will be great".  What can go wrong, right?  Well I could think of a hundred things but we readied the boat putting things that could move around away, checking engine room, packing ditch bag, readying dinghy for launch, having offshore life vests at ready, etc. 
But let me digress a bit.  A number of folks have asked why a night crossing?  Well the day only crossing requires an average speed of about 17MPH to make the trip in daylight leaving right at day break given the distance and the short days at this time of year. That is almost exactly our boat's top cruising speed.  So if we would have any need to stop to change a fuel filter or something similar, we would be out of light entering an unfamiliar winding river on the other end and at lower tide to boot, not a great idea. It would also burn one heck of a lot of diesel fuel at about 30 gallons per hour at that speed. So for all these reasons we finally planned a night crossing.
One cannot arrive too early travelling east into the sun as there are hundreds of crab pots to dodge and the glaring rising sun would not be good to see them in.  So with high tide at roughly noon, we wanted to arrive at the entrance to the inter coastal near Tarpon Springs at 10:30 or so.  We also like to travel moving at least 9 MPH if not a bit faster.  All the other boats at the marina wanted to travel at 8 MPH so would be leaving early afternoon.  Here they are leaving.  Zoom in on the pic with the hat and you will see 8 boats out in the gulf.

 

Our idle speed is almost 7 MPH and idling the diesels for 20+ hours did not appeal to me.  So we called Sonny and Phyllis on Corkscrew, a boat we met in St Andrews Marina in Panama City, and found they wanted to go to Tarpon Springs and travel between 9 and 10 MPH. So the plan came together....
We left Carrabelle Moorings marina around noon and anchored out at Dog Island near Corkscrew just around the corner from East Pass where we would enter the Gulf.  Corkscrew at anchor:

This did a couple things, got us 7 miles closer to our destination, allowed us to nap, put us in a position to leave East Pass right at sunset, etc. We pulled anchor and entered the Gulf as the sun was setting.  A 9MPH cruising speed should get us to Tarpon Springs at 10:30 according to the chart plotter and my calculations...we'll see how that goes!  The line on the chart shows our intended course:

Getting started

sunset on the gulf

 

So first thing was to set the auto pilot on that waypoint 150 miles SW.  Done.  ETA 10:30 AM Thursday at our 9 MPH.  Perfect start. Corkscrew does the same about 1/2 mile behind us.  All is good.  As night sets in how to dim all the lights on electronics, indicator lights on the dash, heating/cooling thermostat read outs, etc. is the task at hand.  Ahh, that white duct tape works great for those pesky indicator lights and stairway courtesy lights that were too bright, and the owners manual was consulted for a couple electronic devices I had forgotten how to dim.  We wanted to preserve our night vision with all that activity...well, guess what, with no moon you could not see anything except all of the stars in the sky any ways!  The reflection of Venus (I think) on the water was about the only light.  So the dimly lit radar screen was our friend all night. 

And we moved ahead at 9MPH with only radar and charted buoys, etc on the chart plotter to"see" what was ahead.  At first this was a bit unnerving, but it is a big gulf and there can't be too many floating objects that could sink us right?  Sure hope that is right!  So we "checked in" with Corkscrew once per hour just to check on each other and the night moved on.  Engine gauge check, radar check, etc. 
Another thing about the dark from Julie's perspective. As many know she does get seasick and we had some pretty good rolling at times with the 2 foot waves out there.  But she says that the inability to see ahead actually helped her condition.  Interesting.
At our 10 PM check in we also heard from Sunny Days ahead of us travelling to Clearwater.  They asked if we had heard the may day call.  No we had not but later we heard the Coast Guard hailing Blue Haven (one of the boats who left earlier ahead of us). for their input into what they heard on the may day.  We could only hear the CG side of the conversation but the CG continued to broadcast the may day information for mariners to be on the watch.  Later Julie heard the Air Force hail a couple fishing vessels for information on the may day as well.  Julie woke me up as the Air Force was asking the fishing vessels for their position and she could not recall how to show ours on the chart plotter. (darn old non user friendly Raymarine stuff....she knew how to do it on the Garmin in the Sea Ray). But they did not call us.  Our thought is that this may day was yet another hoax as we have not heard anything further.
Other than that, a quiet and peaceful passage. We saw one shrimper all lit up, but other than that saw no one.  It began to get light around 5:30 AM which was quite welcome. 

 

The dolphins again were amazing. Here they are just ahead of the bow wave.  Unbelievable. The videos just do not do them justice but you will get a sense.  It is just amazing to see them 2 or 3 hundred yards from the boat and then turn and make a beeline towards the boat to play in the wakes.  We just cannot get enough of them!

 

We arrived at buoy R2 right on plan, 10:30.  And as we had planned, there were lots of crab pots to navigate through as we steered east into the Tarpon Springs area. Both of us with binoculars was necessary at times.   We bid farewell to our crossing boat buddy Corkscrew as they were travelling on to Dunedin.  We hope we see them again down the way.  We made our way the last 7 or 8 miles to the Turtle Cove marina at high tide as recommended for our draft.

We backed into a very tight slip, washed the salt off the boat and took a nap.  We then met up with the others who came here earlier (some of the group who left Carrabelle earlier in the day) and had a great fresh seafood dinner at Rusty Bellies to celebrate the crossing.

Here is a dinner we had with our crossing partners Sonny and Phyliss from Corkscrew. 

 

Funny story.  We thought that when we met them in St Andrews they said they were veteran (Gold) Loopers.  So we thought it a bit funny that they wanted us to lead.  Well we found out we had them confused with another boat and they were navigating on an iPad!  Phyliss remarked at our celebration dinner that she was so thankful for our stern light leading the way all night.  Ignorance is bliss!

Another Rusty Bellies shot....

 

 

So to recap....Julie was right, the crossing was great and we have this major portion of our adventure behind us.  It was a great experience!!
We had fun exploring Tarpon Springs and its Greek and sponge diving heritage. Even attended the Christmas parade:

 Next up, we look forward to Sarah and Joe's visit starting Sunday when they will meet us at Clearwater Beach Marina.