Just enjoying Sarasota.

We have had beautiful weather here until March 1st, when big winds and colder temps came through. It's still 60 degree days, so lots better than Chicago, and it's supposed to go back to the 70s and 80s by March 5th.

Just regular fun stuff.... We went to a musical play "Patsy Cline - Always" which was quite enjoyable, mostly because the lead actress really had the Patsy Cline voice down pat (down Patsy?). We had 4 Saint Charles friends over to the boat on Monday, went to lunch with them and went to see their beautiful Sarasota condo. I loved their huge outdoor screen porch "lanai" overlooking a water channel and wetlands behind their home.

Then we went to Mote Aquarium today. It was unimpressive after seeing the excellent aquarium in Chattanooga, but I really liked watching this octopus creepy crawl around the tank. It looks out through the glass and almost looks somewhat intelligent, which I understand they are.


We also drove to Lake Suzy, FL today to drop off our Winslow life raft to get re-certified. Winslow is a good, working, American manufacturing facility with a very good rating for quality in the life raft industry. They also showed me that they recertify all of United Airlines' airplane rafts and door exit slides, which are huge when they're just blown up and laid out on a factoryt floor. It's nice to see some US companies making it OK in this economy.

We're talking about maybe cruising down to the pine island sound for 2 days, just to see it again. It's a very nice place to cruise and we're only half a day away. Then we plan to leave here about 3/14 or so to go to Clearwater and wait for calm seas in the Gulf to cross to Carabelle.