Thursday, March 12th, St Pete
Some of your time sailing is pure boredom other times are pure fear for your life. Most of the time it is like yesterday, a three-knot wind on the stern and the drone of the diesel at 2000 rpm as we head up the bay at 5.7 knots. Since a lot of this is new territory for us entering these harbors even in daytime is a challenge. The yacht basin is huge with several marinas in the same basin. Our first mission is to find the pump out station by talking to the dockmaster at the city docks on VHF. After searching all over the basin we find it is behind us so we do the “Uee” and head back. The area is about 75’ long and we have to parallel park the boat. Capt Carole swings this big sucker right into the hole, kicks it into reverse and we slide up to the dock. Who says girls can’t drive.
We have a huge box of mail at the yacht club and I head across the street to collect it. For a little country boy from Sycamore who thinks the “Ark” in Pell City is fine dining, the St Pete Yacht Club is a pretty intimidating place. The staff is finely dressed and had trouble looking down to my level even though I towered above them. Ok, I did have on an old tee shirt, shorts and flip flops and a bath would have helped a lot. I told them I had come to pick up mail and we had just crossed the Gulf in our boat. Well making ocean passages will raise your statue in any yachting community, I was instantly accepted, but I will clean up before I go back.
Tony and “K” arrived after a 9 hour trip from the Keys and we had a nice dinner at “Moon Under The Water”.
This will probably be the last log for a few days. We will be hanging out in town and attending the meeting of the Florida Yacht Council.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Mothers, sons, hamburgers
Wednesday, March 11th, Manatee River
After a bike trip to the post office, we were off in the ditch again. Carole had to send out some post cards to some of our friends (mothers) who don’t do computers. We only had one bridge to deal with today and we had perfect timing to miss the opening so we had to “stool” around for 28 minutes until the next opening. They were working on the bridge and could only open one side. After we cleared, it took them 15 minutes to get it to go back down. Now there were some hacked of islanders waiting to get somewhere. It was a pretty boring along this section. You parallel the Skyway Bridge for several miles, right outside the markers you can see sand about 6” deep. We make our bump on the bottom (is there no deep water anywhere here?) and head to the Bradenton Yacht Club to meet Mike. It takes Mike about 3 minutes to figure out what is wrong with the stove and about 3 more minutes to fix it. We throw the dock lines on board and head back out in the river to anchor under a full moon.
We are looking forward to cheeseburgers off the grill and baked beans. There is one thing I have never understood about mothers and partially sons. You can’t leave your moms house without some food. So in the age-old tradition when Michael left on Sunday he had our cooler (thanks for mailing it back Sonya) with food. Well Michael, I hope you enjoyed your stir-fry hamburgers because baked chicken didn’t quite hit the spot. May next time Carole will look at what she is sending home with the boys.
Anyway, it was a beautiful full moon, with Johnny Mathis on the stereo. You don’t need any more details.
After a bike trip to the post office, we were off in the ditch again. Carole had to send out some post cards to some of our friends (mothers) who don’t do computers. We only had one bridge to deal with today and we had perfect timing to miss the opening so we had to “stool” around for 28 minutes until the next opening. They were working on the bridge and could only open one side. After we cleared, it took them 15 minutes to get it to go back down. Now there were some hacked of islanders waiting to get somewhere. It was a pretty boring along this section. You parallel the Skyway Bridge for several miles, right outside the markers you can see sand about 6” deep. We make our bump on the bottom (is there no deep water anywhere here?) and head to the Bradenton Yacht Club to meet Mike. It takes Mike about 3 minutes to figure out what is wrong with the stove and about 3 more minutes to fix it. We throw the dock lines on board and head back out in the river to anchor under a full moon.
We are looking forward to cheeseburgers off the grill and baked beans. There is one thing I have never understood about mothers and partially sons. You can’t leave your moms house without some food. So in the age-old tradition when Michael left on Sunday he had our cooler (thanks for mailing it back Sonya) with food. Well Michael, I hope you enjoyed your stir-fry hamburgers because baked chicken didn’t quite hit the spot. May next time Carole will look at what she is sending home with the boys.
Anyway, it was a beautiful full moon, with Johnny Mathis on the stereo. You don’t need any more details.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Wooden boat lovers are everywhere
Tuesday, March 10, 2009, Pass-A-Grille
I had a real adventure this morning. Les the dockmaster is a unique person. He started talking how he had lived on a wooden boat and then the real conversation started. He invited me go on a road trip to see his boat that he is rebuilding. The boat was built in the Bahamas in 1946 the same year as Les was born (yesterday was his birthday), his father bought the boat when Les was about 10 and they moved on board. He spent most of his childhood in the Bahamas. After a couple of tours of duty in Vet Nam he moved back on board with his new wife and they did charters. He took Prince Charles sailing on it in the 70’s. He has been the dockmaster at the Treasure Island Yacht Club for the past 28 years. He lived on the boat in the marina for the first 18 years until it got to where it was leaking so bad it had to come out of the water to replace a few board. So far all of the main frames and planking have either been replaced or in the process of being replaced. It is looking so good he has decided to replace the keel now. I think the only thing that will be remaining of the original boat will be the lines from the original. We not only saw his boat but we visited with a couple of other wooden boat builders and repairers in the area. One of the guys is building a 25 ft glued lap strake power boat. He is about 80% finished and was doing a beautiful job. He was doing all of this in a shop about half the size of The Hundred Acre Woods. It is amazing that you can find wooden boat lovers everywhere. By the way, Les told me his dad is 88 and still flies his own plane. He and Les are going to fly to the Bahamas in the next few weeks.
We only have a few miles and two bridges to get to Pass-A-Grille Yacht Club. The club is closed on Tuesday not Monday like the book shows. It is a small club, no pool but across from a pretty beach. We bike about a mile into town and check things out. Carole got very excited when she found a coil operated laundry. A good washing machine and she is happy as she can be.
We are off to Bradenton tomorrow to see if we can someone to repair the stove.
I had a real adventure this morning. Les the dockmaster is a unique person. He started talking how he had lived on a wooden boat and then the real conversation started. He invited me go on a road trip to see his boat that he is rebuilding. The boat was built in the Bahamas in 1946 the same year as Les was born (yesterday was his birthday), his father bought the boat when Les was about 10 and they moved on board. He spent most of his childhood in the Bahamas. After a couple of tours of duty in Vet Nam he moved back on board with his new wife and they did charters. He took Prince Charles sailing on it in the 70’s. He has been the dockmaster at the Treasure Island Yacht Club for the past 28 years. He lived on the boat in the marina for the first 18 years until it got to where it was leaking so bad it had to come out of the water to replace a few board. So far all of the main frames and planking have either been replaced or in the process of being replaced. It is looking so good he has decided to replace the keel now. I think the only thing that will be remaining of the original boat will be the lines from the original. We not only saw his boat but we visited with a couple of other wooden boat builders and repairers in the area. One of the guys is building a 25 ft glued lap strake power boat. He is about 80% finished and was doing a beautiful job. He was doing all of this in a shop about half the size of The Hundred Acre Woods. It is amazing that you can find wooden boat lovers everywhere. By the way, Les told me his dad is 88 and still flies his own plane. He and Les are going to fly to the Bahamas in the next few weeks.
We only have a few miles and two bridges to get to Pass-A-Grille Yacht Club. The club is closed on Tuesday not Monday like the book shows. It is a small club, no pool but across from a pretty beach. We bike about a mile into town and check things out. Carole got very excited when she found a coil operated laundry. A good washing machine and she is happy as she can be.
We are off to Bradenton tomorrow to see if we can someone to repair the stove.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Doing the Ditch
Monday, March 9th, Treasure Island Yacht Club
We are doing the ditch, for those of you who are marine challenged that means we are taking the ICW. A brief history lesson here; the ICW is a protected waterway that runs from Brownsville, Texas to New Jersey. A lot of it is in bays and rivers but there are long stretches is in dredged canals thus the name “The Ditch”. It is a great way to travel with two minor issues bridges and shallow water. Well when you are 65’ tall and 6’-2” deep those are not minor issues. Most of the bridges in this section are bascule bridges, which is a real adventure. If you live on or trying to get to an island those damn sailboat keep wanting to wonder up and down the ICW stopping traffic. There is a lot of pressure from residence to have a minimum number of openings. As a side note there is one in DC that opens once daily at 3:00 AM. The bridge tenders don’t like to have the bridges open for any longer than possible. When the bridge is open enough for your spreaders to not hang on the bridge girders then they want you to come thru. One woman (she certainly wasn’t a fine southern lady) keep telling us to come on we were going too slow. We get to the bridge and have to back down hard to keep from hitting it. After we go thru the bridge, barely clearing with our spreaders the bridge continues to open and remains open for another 5 minutes with no other traffic. You have to ask yourself what was the #^$* point in that. I will get off my soapbox now and continue on. By going down the ditch, you see a LOT of beautiful houses. There is a lot of money of money along that path, of course there are bunch of them with for sale signs with reduced on the sign.
We pull into Treasure Island Yacht Club. The club was closed on Monday. Les the dockmaster met us even though it was his day off. After things are secure, we take off on our bicycles to tour Treasure Island. We have to go check out the Publix grocery story that was built on stilts to get it above the wave action. It has 4 hospital size elevators, to get the groceries up and down to the street. There is a beautiful wide beach with pretty white sand. We can highly recommend the Grouper sandwiches at Sloppy Joes.
We are doing the ditch, for those of you who are marine challenged that means we are taking the ICW. A brief history lesson here; the ICW is a protected waterway that runs from Brownsville, Texas to New Jersey. A lot of it is in bays and rivers but there are long stretches is in dredged canals thus the name “The Ditch”. It is a great way to travel with two minor issues bridges and shallow water. Well when you are 65’ tall and 6’-2” deep those are not minor issues. Most of the bridges in this section are bascule bridges, which is a real adventure. If you live on or trying to get to an island those damn sailboat keep wanting to wonder up and down the ICW stopping traffic. There is a lot of pressure from residence to have a minimum number of openings. As a side note there is one in DC that opens once daily at 3:00 AM. The bridge tenders don’t like to have the bridges open for any longer than possible. When the bridge is open enough for your spreaders to not hang on the bridge girders then they want you to come thru. One woman (she certainly wasn’t a fine southern lady) keep telling us to come on we were going too slow. We get to the bridge and have to back down hard to keep from hitting it. After we go thru the bridge, barely clearing with our spreaders the bridge continues to open and remains open for another 5 minutes with no other traffic. You have to ask yourself what was the #^$* point in that. I will get off my soapbox now and continue on. By going down the ditch, you see a LOT of beautiful houses. There is a lot of money of money along that path, of course there are bunch of them with for sale signs with reduced on the sign.
We pull into Treasure Island Yacht Club. The club was closed on Monday. Les the dockmaster met us even though it was his day off. After things are secure, we take off on our bicycles to tour Treasure Island. We have to go check out the Publix grocery story that was built on stilts to get it above the wave action. It has 4 hospital size elevators, to get the groceries up and down to the street. There is a beautiful wide beach with pretty white sand. We can highly recommend the Grouper sandwiches at Sloppy Joes.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Yacht Club Ready
Sunday, March 08, 2009, Clearwater Yacht Club
After two days of cleaning, I have “most” of the salt off the boat. Spent most of today cleaning the enclosure and polishing stainless. I still have more to do but I have time before we have to be “Yacht Club Ready” at the St Pete Yacht Club next weekend. One of our missions on this trip is to attend the Florida Yacht Council Meeting. Our friends Tony and “K” have wanted us to go with them for a while and things have just never worked out.
We have enjoyed our stay at the Clearwater Yacht Club. We have been hanging out with John and Helen Caffery who we have been sort of buddy boating with. They are a great couple that we have really enjoyed getting to know better. They have friends from Gulf Breese that were transferred to Clearwater last year. In the fine tradition of southern hospitality, Dale and Jeannie Walden also invited us to join in for dinner at their house. Steaks no less. In the fine tradition of the Deal family Carole load up an ice chest and off we went. It was a very enjoyable evening. Carole, Michael and I had a wonderful time. One of the best things we have found about traveling by boat is all of the great people you meet along the way. John and Helen pulled out this morning about 10:00 headed to their next stop. They are on a mission to get to the Keys so they are trying to make as much headway as possible. Right now, the winds are not favorable for heading down to the Keys. They are going to try to work there way south and jump out in the Gulf as soon as they get a window.
Michael left out today headed home. I went and pickup a rental car yesterday for him to drive back to Pensacola, pick up his car, drive to Pell City, spend the night at our house and then head back to Atlanta on Monday. Going to get the car was a real adventure. The rental car office was only six miles away but it took over two hours to make the trip. Apparently, a pretty weekend, a few spring breakers can back up traffic for a long way for people trying to get to the beach. With a car for a few hours, we made the required trip to the grocery and liquor store. Carole spent more on liquor than food. That should be revealing about the type of trip this is going to be.
Tomorrow we head down the ditch thru the narrows and under drawbridges for the trip to Treasure Island Yacht Club.
For all of you who are not familiar with yacht clubs our 1st night in all of the clubs are free. This trip will go quite a way toward paying for our club initiation.
After two days of cleaning, I have “most” of the salt off the boat. Spent most of today cleaning the enclosure and polishing stainless. I still have more to do but I have time before we have to be “Yacht Club Ready” at the St Pete Yacht Club next weekend. One of our missions on this trip is to attend the Florida Yacht Council Meeting. Our friends Tony and “K” have wanted us to go with them for a while and things have just never worked out.
We have enjoyed our stay at the Clearwater Yacht Club. We have been hanging out with John and Helen Caffery who we have been sort of buddy boating with. They are a great couple that we have really enjoyed getting to know better. They have friends from Gulf Breese that were transferred to Clearwater last year. In the fine tradition of southern hospitality, Dale and Jeannie Walden also invited us to join in for dinner at their house. Steaks no less. In the fine tradition of the Deal family Carole load up an ice chest and off we went. It was a very enjoyable evening. Carole, Michael and I had a wonderful time. One of the best things we have found about traveling by boat is all of the great people you meet along the way. John and Helen pulled out this morning about 10:00 headed to their next stop. They are on a mission to get to the Keys so they are trying to make as much headway as possible. Right now, the winds are not favorable for heading down to the Keys. They are going to try to work there way south and jump out in the Gulf as soon as they get a window.
Michael left out today headed home. I went and pickup a rental car yesterday for him to drive back to Pensacola, pick up his car, drive to Pell City, spend the night at our house and then head back to Atlanta on Monday. Going to get the car was a real adventure. The rental car office was only six miles away but it took over two hours to make the trip. Apparently, a pretty weekend, a few spring breakers can back up traffic for a long way for people trying to get to the beach. With a car for a few hours, we made the required trip to the grocery and liquor store. Carole spent more on liquor than food. That should be revealing about the type of trip this is going to be.
Tomorrow we head down the ditch thru the narrows and under drawbridges for the trip to Treasure Island Yacht Club.
For all of you who are not familiar with yacht clubs our 1st night in all of the clubs are free. This trip will go quite a way toward paying for our club initiation.
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