Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Fort Myers Beach - Dec 21-30

Monday morning we walked about to check out our new hometown. We are a block away from many restaurants and shops. Just a few blocks away is "Time Square", the heart of what's happening in Fort Myers Beach. We are 1/10 of a mile from our marina located on the Intracoastal side of the island to the big beach on the Gulf side. The tourists are all here for the holidays! Wow! We contacted Steve's uncle and aunt, Ken and Joyce Sterk from Green Lake who winter down here and dinner with them. 

Tuesday we jumped in the dinghy and cruised 7 miles to Lovers Key State Park (the next island south).
It was a warm sunny day so we hung on the beach on Lovers Key. 

We had a wonderful Florida Christmas.  We went to an Candlelight Christmas Eve service with Uncle Ken and Aunt Joyce at their church. After church they treated us root beer floats at their place. 
Once we were back on the boat for the evening, a storm came through with high winds and really rocked the boats in the marina. Christmas morning we took a walk on the beach and came across a sailboat that had washed up on the beach during the storm. Glad it wasn't us! Ken and Joyce invited us to join them for a Christmas potluck at their park. The home cooked food sure was yummy!
Many people were interested and had lots of questions about our Great Loop Adventure.  Ken and Joyce were great family to share Christmas with. 

Since Christmas, we have continued to explore the area by foot, bike, trolley and dinghy. The weather has been sunny and unseasonably warm (yes!) and mostly calm winds. In fact one day we did a "Mini Loop" by taking our dinghy all the way around the island! (with an 8 mile stretch on the Gulf of Mexico!)

Since we love this area we have decided to stay here for a couple more weeks. From here we plan to head to the Keys. 



Selfie on beach Christmas morning!

 Sailboat washed up from Christmas Eve storm.

 Christmas tree Florida style!

 Fort Myers Beach shopping. (Love the palms!)

 Sharing Christmas with Uncle Ken & Aunt Joyce Sterk

 Sheli messing with a pelican.

 Pelican about to mess with Sheli!

 This looks fun, haven't tried it...yet!

 Got up one morning and saw this across the water from us. Note there is a sunk boat in front of the burnt boat. 

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Monday, December 22, 2014

Dunedin - Fort Myers Beach - Dec 15-21

Monday morning we woke up to a sunny cool day at Marker 1 Marina near Dunedin, FL. Mom walked to the grocery store with us to get some much needed supplies. After tucking all our goodies away, the three of us boarded to dinghy for a 3 mile ride to downtown Dunedin. We had fun checking out the shops and snacking on ice cream. Yum! Later in the afternoon, we left mom on the boat so she could catch up with some emails while we took the dinghy over to check out Caladesi Island. On the way we grounded the dinghy on a sandbar. We seem to do this a lot, luckily only with the little boat! (sandy bottom, no damage.) 

Tuesday morning we headed out for our next destination of The Club at Treasure Island. It was a beautiful day for cruising. We were hoping to show mom a dolphin show however they have eluded us since mom's arrival. But...we did see a flying dinghy. Yes....a flying dinghy. Yes...a flying dinghy! 
What a treat to stay at The Club at Treasure Island. This is a yacht club with excellent facilities including a beautiful pool. The three of us walked to Treasure Island beach area where saw a beautiful sunset while eating at Sloopy Joes. 

Wednesday we took the trolley to John's Pass Village. What a fun spot. Great shopping, restaurants, and docks with many fishing boats. At night mom treated us to a special dinner at the Yacht Club. 

Thursday morning Wes & Mary Mollard arrived to pick up mom. It was tough to say goodbye, but are thankful for the great time we had together.  Our newest crew member seemed to enjoy life (and sleeping) on the sea. We then continued our journey down the ICW as far as Tampa Bay. Here we had our first sighting of a school of stingrays! It was a calm day, so we went out and traveled on the Gulf. 
We came back inland at Longboat Pass. We spent the evening tied up to the dock outside of Moores Stone Crab Restaurant . They allow you to stay overnight for free if you have dinner in their restaurant.

Friday morning we took a long walk on the beach of Longboat Key. What a pretty area with peacocks walking around the neighborhood. Yes...peacocks! By late morning we were traveling again. Once again the Gulf was calm so we travelled out in the blue water. We came back in to the ICW at Venice Pass. What a pretty area with huge homes along the ICW. We traveled 15 more miles and dropped the hook near Englewood Beach. 

Saturday morning the Captain needed to satisfy the First Mates craving for some beach time so we traveled 3 hours to Cayo Costa State Park on La Costa Island. By noon, we were setting the anchor, dropping the dinghy and heading to the beach. We wanted to have lunch at South Beach Grill so we needed to anchor the dinghy in the Gulf and wade in. Captain "I don't want to swim after it" did not trust our small dinghy anchor so we used the extra 45 pound anchor off the boat.  That bad boy didn't move at all! What a great day!

Sunday we headed out for Captiva Island where we were planning on anchoring for the night. Predictions were for strong winds out of the south, so we chose an anchorage with the best protection.  The winds had already picked up by the time we dropped anchor so Captain "I won't sleep tonight" said "I don't like it", so we left. We continued on to Moss Marina at Fort Myers Beach. 
We plan to stay here through Christmas, maybe longer. 



 Mom relaxing.

 Hey Paul...put this on the list for a Saturday morning project!

 This may solve our problem of hitting bottom with our dinghy.

 Sand sculpture on Treasure Island

 The Club at Treasure Island

 Christmas palms!

 Sunset from the Pura Vida.

 Merry Christmas!

 Turn which way at which marker???

 Beach adventures via dinghy 

Monday, December 15, 2014

Clearwater Beach - Tarpon Springs, Dec 8-14


After a good nights sleep we felt recovered from our overnight Gulf crossing and ready to explore Clearwater Beach on Monday. The weather felt more like Michigan than "sunny" Florida! It was a cold (high 40's), windy, dark, misty day. Not to be deterred by the weather, after lunch with our friends from Twelve Stones and Endevour, we walked out to the beach (quickly turned around), and checked out the area and the shops.  At night we met Jerry, a friend that lives in Clearwater for dinner at Beachcombers. It was a fun evening of catching up and sharing yummy food! 

Tuesday was another cold, windy day, however the sun was out. We decided to extend our stay here a couple more days due to the wind. It's just too windy to move on. We walked over to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.  This aquarium is a marine hospital dedicated to "rescue, rehab and release" of marine animals.  This is the home to Winter, a dolphin that was saved and now swims with a prosthetic tale. If you've seen the movie Dolphin Tale, you are familiar with Winter and her story. A few of the other animals we saw are stingrays, otters, sea turtles, and sharks. 

Wednesday after getting some "chores" done, (wash, engine maintenance), we enjoyed the beach for a few hours. It was warm enough for lunch on the beach and a long walk. Every evening, vendors and musicians gather on the Pier for a sunset celebration.  We enjoyed the music, shopping and sunset with Russ, Elaine and John.  We sent Captain Transportation to find us a taxi to take us down the beach for pizza and he returned with a limo! What a ride! The pizza was good too!

The winds calmed down so it was time to move on. On Thursday morning we headed north, yes north...as we had plans to pick up Sheli's mom, Crystal in Tarpon Springs on Friday. 
It was a beautiful day so we spent a couple hours on a small island before anchoring out for the night.

Friday morning, we pulled anchor and cruised 10 miles to Tarpon Springs. We stayed at the City Municipal Marina, a small marina located right by the sponge docks. Tarpon Springs is known for it's sponge harvesting from the Gulf and processing. It is a very Greek town with many great Greek restaurants and cute stores. Crystal's good friends Wes & Mary Mollard live in the area. Wes picked up Mom at the airport and brought her to the marina. We all enjoyed a great Greek lunch.  At night we went to the Tarpon Springs Christmas Festival. The local kids loved the snow machine! (Yuck!)
We also enjoyed the parade of boats decorated for Christmas. 

Saturday mom and Sheli had a fun day of shopping and exploring the great town of Tarpon Springs.
Steve tagged along as long as he could then went back to the boat and worked on some projects. 

Sunday morning we walked to the St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. That was a very different experience for all three of us! By noon we pulled out of Tarpon Springs  and headed south to Dunedin.
Along the way we stopped and anchored off Three Rooker Bar island and had lunch on the boat. After lunch we took the dinghy to the island to walk the beach. Late afternoon we continued on to Marker 1 Marina which will be our home for the next two nights. 




 Cold dark Clearwater Beach 

 Our Marina in Cleawater

 Petting the stingrays at Clearwater Aquarium.

 Sunny day on Clearwater Beach.

 Russ & John in the limo!

 Gulf crossing crew.

 Selfie with mom!

 Boat parade

 Yummy Greek desserts!

 Sponges everywhere in Tarpon Springs

 Beautiful Greek Orthodox Church.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

The Gulf Crossing - Dec 6-7

We made it!! Thanks for all the prayers for warm weather and calm seas. We should added fog to the list! 

Saturday morning we left Port St. Joe Marina at 7am. Dean the Harbor Host came into work early to send us off. He brought us our morning newspaper along with a jar of local honey! Impressive! 
Our journey began by cruising 5 miles up the canal back to the Intracoastal Waterway. Along the way a man on shore waved and yelled to get our attention. He asked that when we came to the small floating house a quarter mile up stream that we tell Larry to come and pick up Chip. After yelling and blowing our horn, we finally woke up Larry and gave him the message. Mission accomplished.
As we turned onto the Intracoastal we began to notice fog. The fog continued to build. Upon entering Lake Wimico (a 5 mile shallow lake with a narrow channel cut through it) the fog was THICK! So thick we had a small local fishing boat follow us across as we used our chart plotter and radar to make our way to the other end. We then continued 10 more miles along the Intracoastal to Apalachicola Marina fuel dock where thankfully our friends were waiting for us to meet up with them. They had to yell and whistle for us to locate them in the fog. We filled up with gas and left the dock around noon. 

 We traveled 25 miles through another marked channel of St. George Sound. (more fog) We turned through East Pass and entered the Gulf. The fog cleared as we went through the Pass. Within a half hour the fog was back to stay. We charted our coast for Clearwater Beach and were on our way. 
We traveled with 5 other boats - Twelve Stones, Endeavor, Dream Fever, Akasha and Ithaca.
We traveled single file staying close enough to keep visual contact of eachother's lights. Radar was essential all the way as the fog was thick from 1pm until 4am. We all checked in with each other hourly on the radios to make sure all was well and that we were staying awake. This also helped make the hours click away faster.  The waters remained calm throughout the night and occasionally we would get a glimpse of the full moon.  As daylight came the winds picked up and so did the waves.  The last 25 miles we had 19 knot winds and 2-3 feet following seas. (we rocked and rolled, but not uncomfortable) It was a cloudy morning which made it easier to avoid the crab pot markers as we approached Clearwater. We a were greeted by 20-30 dolphins - love these guys! 

We were exhausted but happy once we were docked the Clearwater Beach Marina by noon on Sunday. After celebrating with a big lunch with the group, we returned to the boat for a nap. 

We had a surprise call from Robert, our mechanic checking to see how the boat ran - what a great guy! The Pura Vida and it's new transmission purred like a kitten throughout our 29 hour, 227 mile day.
The crossing has been on our mind since departing Grand Haven so we are thankful and happy to have it behind us.

 "Larry...go pick up Chip down river!"

 Intracoastal - fog building

 Endeavor departing Apalachicola.

 Twelve Stones heading out.

 Nap time on the helm during the night.

 Windy morning.

 Crab pot markers.

 Land in sight! Clearwater here we come!

Friday, December 5, 2014

Back in Action - Dec 1-5

Our time in St. Port Joe has come to an end. We have been here a week waiting to get the transmission repaired on our port engine. We had a fun week exploring the area by bike, dinghy and walking around town.  

On Wednesday we took the dinghy 5 miles across the bay to Cape San Blas.
Along the shore we cruised in 2 feet of water and saw many sand dollars and fish and a sting ray on the sandy bottom. At the end of the point we joined the Gulf of Mexico and turned into a small lagoon.
We beached the dinghy and walked the beach along with the pelicans. It was a beautiful afternoon exploring! 

The transmission arrived late Thursday afternoon. Our mechanic Robert spent the entire day on Friday installing the transmission. At 5:00pm we were up and running. Saturday morning we plan to head out at sunrise to Apalachicola to meet up with several other looper boats to cross the Gulf to the Tampa area. We are excited for our 21 hour crossing as the forecast is for calm seas and a full moon!

 View from a bridge on one of our bike rides.

 Clear water!

 Selfie at Cape San Blas.

 Cape San Blas lagoon

 Pelicans hanging out by the marina.

 Groceries getter. Stocking up!

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Month Three Stats


NOVEMBER 2014

Number of days:                 30                Trip to date:          90
Miles traveled:                    229                                        2009
Engine hours:                       23                                           259
Locks:                                    0                                             32                             
Gallons of gas:                       50 (rental car only - ha!)
Nights on anchor:                   2                                             13
Nights on free wall/marina:     25                                           36
Nights at marinas:                    3                                           41

States covered: Alabama, Florida 

Dolphins, pelicans, miles of white sandy beaches, beach souvenir shops - to many to count.
Miles on the rental car - 1100.

Highlight: Anchoring out to watch the Blue Angels Air Show with LaNell.