End of the line

Two weeks ago we picked up our youngest son in Houston and brought him back to Sarasota. Since then we have rented a condo, put the boat back in our original slip on Longboat Key, and called the boat broker that sold us the boat. 

 Back in Longboat Key:

We still have to fix the bow thruster, redo the teak, and finish emptying it of our personal possessions. This was not part of our near or distance plans; however, as regular readers of this blog will note one of my favorite sayings  is (ad nauseum) "life is what happens while you are making plans."

The good news is that the boat broker called a gentleman who really wanted the boat when we bought it and he is coming to town next week for a viewing.

Sarasota Bay

 On a mooring ball in Sarasota Bay is not a bad place to be in January. High today was 75 and tonight’s low is predicted to be 68. 

Proof that our judgement is not singular - downtown Sarasota is filled with high rise buildings, that unlike other cities, are condos not offices. Just north of us are multi-million dollar condos.

Of course the sunset looks the same from our boat as from their balconies.

Northbound

 We found a weather window and left the Florida Keys Sunday morning, stopping 10 minutes later to fill the diesel tanks and empty the holding tank. Dodging crab pots we followed the chart plotter to our first stop in the Little Shark river - much to the delight of a few million no-see-ums. The evening was spent inside with the windows shut. Not a hardship in the cool (64 degree) evening.

Little Shark:

Day two was our longest passage to Marco Island where we had a protected bay and no bugs.

Sunset with libations at Marco:

On day three we re-entered the intercoastal waterway and within minutes we were joined by dolphins. They stayed with us for almost a half hour giving me time to realize I should get a picture or three.

While trying to reason out why we were blessed with such dolphin attention it finally occurred to me that our boat developed a good size wave at our cruising speed of nine miles per hour. Plenty of wave to play in at an easy speed for a dolphin. As if to prove my point we were joined by several other pods throughout the afternoon. The day goes fast watching wild dolphins play.

We are now in Sarasota and will spend the next month here. We are as far north as we want to be for this time of year.

Heading north

 Tomorrow we head back to the cold north land of Sarasota. Our plan is 5 easy days and anchoring along the way.

View from the patio of the main building:

A strange sight - seagulls feeding on small fish naturally. No human feeding or stealing involved:

Cruiser diet

 After 3 months of cruising I have inadvertently lost 25 pounds. This may be attributed to 2 things. All food must be carried by hand from the store to the dinghy and then shipped to the boat, and in that vein the  portage of ice cream  (one of my former major food groups) is not possible. 

We did find a food truck with excellent BBQ so don’t feel too bad about my soon to be emaciated condition. We followed our noses and discovered the truck behind a small roadside vegetable stand. 

We might be taking a little cruise in a few days....weather permitting.

Red sky

A couple of firsts for me this week. I have seen the red sky at morning, but never in the evening. The old  adage: "red sky at night sailors delight; red sky in the morning sailors take warning."  was true at least that evening.

The next first for me was getting a picture of dolphins. I have seen lots of them, and even a few wild ones doing tricks for free. I have tried a couple times to get a picture but dolphins have their fun quickly and move on. This pod of 4 alerted us with heavy breathing right on our stern. They went to the end of the bay and I was ready for their return.

 

Lost at sea

OK, the title is a bit misleading. A more appropriate title could be "Adrift in the moorings". Some child's teddy bear jumped ship or maybe was forced to walk the plank. In any event our dinghy was stowed for the night and I declined relenqushing my slothful ways to rescue the remains of an inanimate object.

Not to be confused with last week's Marathon Christmas boat parade - last night was the mooring field dinghy Christmas parade.