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.