Sightseeing, farewells, and a mad Easter

St Petersburgh to Kitty's

We spent 5 days in St Petersburgh and as you can see from Colin's photos we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We walked the waterfront & lunched at a couple of the restaurants and enjoyed the newly redesigned Sundial Place that was open until late at night & housed an artisans food market where you could find anything from cheeses, air cured meat, preserves,fresh fruit & veges to hand made ice cream.

Shar, our boat broker's wife took us to a govt. licensing place to register our dingy which becomes necessary when you motorise it. We also visited West Marine (like a Bunnings for boaters) where Colin bought a new water pump to solve the constant problem we had had with the water pump cutting out because of overheating. He thought it had been leaks but had fixed them & came back to the conclusion that the pump was stuffed. When we got back to the boat he found that it had the wrong fittings after he had lifted all the floor to get into the engine room – dam, dam dam.

Next day Jim the salesman doing our boat deal came to the boat to take photos & then took Colin to West Marine again to exchange the water pump. This time it fitted & the problem was solved.

Next day we hopped on our bikes and visited the Chihuly Glass Collection, which you can see from the photos was magnificent. We also visited the Fine Art Museum. That night we had dinner at Jim's yacht club, Treasure Island YC with his partner Paula & her daughter Jennifer. They were very excited about their impending trip to Cuba the next morning. They are great travellers so were eager to hear of our trip to the Galapagos a couple of years ago. A night of great company, good food & a lovely setting.

The following morning we biked to the Dali Museum for a second visit which this time included a section on Walt Disney. We had lunch at “The Hanger” a restaurant at the airfield then on to our Wells Fargo bank, our favourite grocery store Publix, Wallgreens to pick up a printer cartridge & finally to a Russian souvenir store. All listed chores had been accomplished. That night we met Bob & Shar for dinner at St Petes Yacht Club. We had a great evening at a lovely club and reminisced with the nicest people over a very good dinner.

Next morning after viewing the cyclists racing in the local park we headed out of St Petes. As we reached the Sunshine Skyway Bridge a call came from the Coast Guard to keep a look out for a body in the water in the vicinity of the bridge. This is a favourite spot for suicides & thankfully a coast guard boat located the body before we got there. Then a report came of a drifting 12 ft Hobbiecat & later a capsized 21ft Cobia. Good Friday was turning out to be not so good.

We heard bad weather forecasts for the late afternoon (thunderstorms all along the west coast) so we cut our journey short to find shelter at a marina in Sarasota (Marina Jacks). It turned out to be very expensive @ $2.75 a foot – we usually pay no more than $1 and to add insult to injury the storm never eventuated – maybe a strong gust of wind for 10 minutes. This town appeared to be well off judging from the very lavish art galleries along the waterfront. The next morning we continued along the ICW under numerous bridges, in narrow canals along with all the mad Easter holiday traffic of small run-abouts and large powerful cruisers who tried to impress with their speed and ability to tip you side ways with their wake. We crossed the Charlotte Harbour to Burnt Store Marina where Colin saved about $58 on fuel. We docked there for the night – a huge marina that can slip over 540 boats.

We left next morning into a stiffening southerly & ripply sea. We stopped at the famous Cabbage Key restaurant for lunch with walls papered in dollar notes, admired all the history & bought the T-shirt. We continued into Pine Island Sound where the wind stiffened even more, the wave heights grew & Easter boaters increased in numbers & silliness. Late in the afternoon we entered the calm & peaceful waters in a Cape Coral canal and tied up to the dock of Kitty Nicolai – AGCLA 's 2015 Harbour Host of the Year. We stayed here in May 2015 & were warmly welcomed again.