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.

We're in Sarasota, beautiful Sarasota... our final destination going South this trip.

And here's our first Sarasota sunset, right out our aft deck windows at Marina Jacks Marina. That little strip of land with palm trees across from us is a little park that has squirrels for daisy to tree into the liveoaks. Out on the end of the park is a statue of dolphins jumping in a fountain. It's just gorgeous here, and an easy walk right to the big downtown streets nearby.

The entire trip today was through the typical Florida canals and bays, lined with million dollar homes...











and huge condos. Unlike the "Big Bend" we have been in, this is the Florida that comes to mind when you think of it. They're both Florida, but this one is what I think of when somebody says Florida.






We also cruised through Tampa Bay today/ It's a very large bay and the Bay Bridge is huge and memorable.











This is Marina Jacks as we came in from the bay. We'll be here for about 3 weeks, just enjoying the area, so my blog entries may be less frequent until we start cruising again. Just imagine us doing whatever you think when you think of Florida.

We're in Tarpon Springs, FL after stopping yesterday in Crystal River. We did have a bit of heart pounding excitement before we left Steinhatchee. We had to change marinas in Steinhatchee Thursday because the little marina we started at didn't even have cleats on their docks, just boards nailed to the docks to tie up to. When a 30 MPH wind came up, one of the boards broke and the sternof Nonchalance was free to get pushed out into the river by the strong wind. Luckily, I happened to be on the dock when it happened and jumped to our boarding ladder before it was too far out. Since the bow and spring lines were still tied to the dock, the stern went far out and the bow was getting pushed far around the front of the little dock and right towards another boat docked there. I yelled for Kathy and fired up the engines quickly and threw the starboard engine hard into reverse, just in time to pull back, missing the other boat by inches.... also just in time to back over the 3/4 inch thick dock line that ripped free from the dock and was now trailing in the water still tied to a board from the dock. Luckily, I had installed PropSpurs on our propshafts and props,, which cut the line before it could get wrapped up and stop us. Then, the power cord and water hose were still connected and we were far out from the dock. I manuvered closer and Kathy jumped to the dock to untie the dock lines and I unhooked and I threw her the power and water lines. WHEW! The marina across the river had stronger docks with cleats and good shore power.

Yesterday, we went to Crystal River, which is a "Big Bend" Florida type of place. It's slower, non-touristy and shallow in many spots. I wanted to go see the manatees that stay there in winter due to the clear, constant 70 to 72 degree water, owing to a huge natural spring that feeds the river. We stayed at a marina 2 miles from the bay where the manatees are most plentiful because of shallow spots farther up the river. We took our dinghy the 2 miles or so up river this morning to the headwaters and spring.

The marina we stayed at could hardly hold a 53 ft boat and it was silted in and shallow such that the boats all become mired in silt when the tide is low and can't move. The silt is so soft and thick that the boats all stay upright and even, just no water under them. It's kind of like there is no bottom... it just keeps getting thicker as you go farther down. Our dock was open to a deeper part of the little bay so at least our running gear didn't settle into the silt much, but out bow and the front half of Nonchalance was totally in silt at low tide. Then the tide comes in and floats all the boats again. We had to wait until noon to leave when the tide was high enough to go. This picture is another marina we passed at mid-low tide. These docks won't have water until almost high tide. Our marina wasn't this bad. Most of the boats at the marina had water on the deeper end of the boat at low tide.

We did have a nice sunset though.














The manatees were a real ho-hum. We saw for or five of them passing our aft deck near sundown when we got in on Saturday. This is all you see... just a snout coming up to blow and breathe, or a big swirl in the water as they dive down again.




This morning, we took the dinghy up to the headwaters and big spring area, which is a National Wildlife Refuge, and encountered lots of boats, including tour boats, kayakers, scuba divers, snorkelers, etc. They have cordoned off the manatees favorite area close to shore and the spring to keep everybody out, but the manatees do come out among the boats frequently. However, all you see is the same swirls, snouts and the occasional huge fan shaped tail breaking the surface as they dive.

However, as we were getting the dinghy down at the marina, we saw a large river otter foraging in the river behind our boat. It would come up for air and then go down and stir up the bottom of the river looking for clams or something. It was an extremely lithe and graceful swimmer, totally at home looking for brunch on the bottom. It was fascinating, as neither of us have ever seen a river otter in the wild, and this one was right at our boat.

There is no ICW here, so travel is by going out into the gulf. Yesterday, coming from Steinhatchee to Crystal River the wave forecast was for 1 to 3 ft. and it was solid 3 ft. waves with the occasional 4 footer thrown in. Today from Crystal River to Tarpon Springs the forecast was for 2 to 4 ft, followed by 1 to 3 ft. closer to Tarpon Springs, but today it was completely calm in the gulf. I don't think there was a wave bigger than six inches. I didn't even have to wash the salt off of my boat when we came in! The water down this far is more clear and a nice green-blue color.

It's also full of crab traps and fish traps, with floats and lines, just waiting to get caught on your props (unless you have PropSpurs). You can see a white one off to starboard here and a black one in front of the bow (Kathy's driving). We probably passed one or two thousand floats and had to steer to avoid about a hundred or so.

Tomorrow, we're going to Sarasota, where we plan to stay for 3 weeks or so at Marina Jacks Marina. There is ICW from here to Sarasota, so we won't go out in the gulf tomorrow.

We're in Steinhatchee, FL at the top of Florida's West coast.

We crossed 70 miles of open Gulf waters today after waiting one day in Carrabelle for wave conditions to improve. Waves were about 3 ft. today for most of the trip. The picture is our GPS screen showing Florida's Big Bend, the armpit between the West coast and the Panhandle. Our boat is the arrowhead in the center, since this picture was taken when we were about half of the way across.

Once we were out in the gulf, it just looked like this for 360 degrees... all water on the horizon. We didn't see any other boats the whole way, except for a few fishing boats as we got close to Steinhatchee.

There is no other way to get to the West coast than to cross the gulf. Some cruisers take a very long overnight cruise from Carrabelle to Tarpon Springs and miss the Big Bend. I want to try to get in to Crystal River in the Big Bend next to see, and maybe swim with, the manatees that come there when other waters get cold in the winter. It's a crystal clear, spring fed, river that has one of the largest springs in the world as it's source. The water can be shallow, so it'll be a llittle tricky, but the charts indicate that we should be able to make it if we're careful.

We'll be here in Steinhatchee for at least 2 more days, waiting for the Gulf waves to calm down. The forecast for tomorrow is for 4 to 7 foot waves in the Gulf.

We're in Carrabelle, FL after a cloudt and sometimes rainy cruise from Panama City. Carrabelle is the last stop before our long open water Gulf crossing to Steinhatchee. We have our car here because we thought it might be a longer stop, waiting for waves in ther Gulf. However, the forecast is now for low waves on Tuesday, only a one day wait.

Pretty much the same cruising as previously, fun to watch dolphins but not to go out on the side decks to watch them in the rain. The only other unusual thing was this deer we saw swimming across the waterway, right in front of our boat, from the land side to the barrier islands side. I can just imagine calling up my insurance agent... "I hit a deer"... "Which car were you driving?" .... "No, I was in the boat!"

While we were coming in to Carrabelle, my starboard engine tachometer quit working and just read zero and the engine started speeding up. It's probably the tachometer drive stub, a 4 inch long cable with a square end that can round itself off over the years. 3 years ago, this happened with the port engine. I hope that is the problem, because it's easy and cheap to fix if I can get the parts. I'll find out tomorrow when I take it apart. The speedup was from the engine synchronizer trying to keep it at the same speed as the other engine underway, and the synch thought the engine was turning zero RPMs so it kept increasing the throttle. We'll explore around Carrabelle tomorrow and I'll try to fix the broken tachometer.

We're in Panama City Florida having cruised from Sandestin today in cloudy and sometimes rainy weather. We didn't leave the dock at Sandestin until 11;00 because of lightning in the area, but got here about 4:30 PM.

Like before, half of the waterway is a dug canal, called "The Ditch" by locals here, and the other half is in large open bays and lagoons.










In the bays, dolphins picked us up frequently when they could siurf our side wake.












About 2 PM, a mother and baby dolphin surfed us and she seemed to be showing the baby dolphin how to surf. This is the baby, while the mother (or father I guess) is just a big ripple under water closer to the boat. The baby dolphin was only about 1/4th the size of the adult and had to come up to breathe many more times than the adult. They both had fun and jumped and splashed.

Later two big dolphins were surfing and jumping and I increased our speed to make a bigger wake, which caused them to jump higher, frequently clearing the water entirely like this.

I'm putting too many dolphin pictures in the bloig, but they're such fun to watch.


Tomorrow we're going on to Carrabelle where we'll wait for good wave conditions on the open Gulf waters to cross to Florida's West coast from the panhandle.

We're in SanDestin, FL after a nice cruise through the bays and Intracoastal waterway from Pensacola. We're staying at the Beach Marina, which is part of an absolutely huge golf and condominium resort.

The waterway went through many large bays lined with expensive homes in some places and thin barrier dunes and islands in other places.









In the bays, the dolphins picked us up frequently, surfing our wake and jumping for joy.










When I increased our speed, which increases our wake size, they surfed and jumped even more. I just love watching them. It never seems to get old.

Tomorrow we're gping to Panama City, FL