ssloop: 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