One Minute to Spare

Monday, April 13, 2009, Venice

The wind gods were good to us today. Well maybe it was the diesel engine gods were pretty good too. In any event, we had a 60 mile run. (As a point of reference that would be like driving your car 600 miles in one day.) With the wind behind our back, we put out the jib and were running the engine around 2,000 rpm. That combination gave us a good steady 7 knots thru Pine Island Sound. Our original intent was to anchor at Cabbage Key for the night but there is a front coming thru that was going to give us 20-knot winds out of the south. Cabbage Key is exposed to the south and it would not have been a good anchorage so we decided to keep heading north. We made the Boca Grand Causeway Bridge opening with 1 minute to spare; otherwise, we would have had to wait another 30 minutes. The other bridge we have to be concerned with is the Hatchet Creek Bridge, which shuts down during rush hour from 4:30 to 6:00. We make the bridge with 3 minutes to spare. We must have been living right.

There is a yacht club in Venice but we have not been able to get in either on the way down or the way back. I don’t know if they just don’t have much space or it is the most popular place on the ICW. We are staying at Crows Nest Marina and having to pay about twice as much as we are used to paying. The marina is right at the entrance, Venice Inlet, from the Gulf. There is one heck of current running under our keel. We have doubled all of our dock lines and have a gentle rocking due to the current. With the wind kicking up to 30-knots tomorrow, we may be taking seasick medications at the dock. Our plans are to stay here for a couple of days and see the town. It is supposed to have a great downtown area.