Thankfully, our departure from Pass-A-Grille was a lot easier than the arrival. Today, would be another short hop (39 miles) to Sarasota, Fl. We have been so lucky with our calm seas, experiencing mostly smooth water or a light to moderate chop! On this part of the journey we would be able to see the change in the water colors! The water would change from a dark blue into a beautiful emerald green! Once again, and really it occurs quite often, we were able to watch the dolphins play in our wake. We would be anchoring out this time, in a place in front of downtown Sarasota! This anchorage would be called, Island Park! Some of the anchorage area is located near a marina. Marina Jacks, was right in front of us! This is one of those high dollar operations! There were a whole bunch of what I would call “million dollar yachts!” Some of these vessels were absolutely gorgeous! Between the marina and where we anchored was the park! We had a fantastic view of the dolphin water fall, people walking enjoying their dogs, twenty to thirty story buildings and seeing the big boats come in and out of the marina.
Lets me tell you about anchoring! After the Pass-A-Grille docking, anchoring is the new favorite thing! All you do is unlatch the chain keeper and let the hook drop! The downfall to this is there is no electricity. Every time that we needed to cook, the generator would have to be turned on. With the generator on you have to take advantage of it! Plug everything in that needs charging, turn the hot water heater on, and can’t forget to turn the heater on too!
Anchor was tossed overboard, we put out 100' of chain in 8' of water, everything is secure. Time to go visit Sean and Hazel! We took the “dink” down off of her davitt system, and headed over to the MV “Stella Maris,” she was about 25 yards away from us. All of us decided to hop in our “dink’” I named her “Baby Belle,” actually though she is another “Bama Belle,” just a whole lot smaller. There was a dinghy dock located at O’Learys. This would be a neat little tiki type bar. There was a great reggae band playing, we listened to them for awhile and headed back to the boats for the night!
Saturday we would get up and take care of some things around the boat, check out some email, and catch up on other things. Charlie and I would hop in the dink and head over to O'learys Tiki Bar where we could tie her up, and we could go walk around Sarasota for awhile. We actually were trying to find a bus that would take us to the Ringling Brothers Museum! Unfortunately, we had no luck at that, and to walk would be way to far. We did get to see a great part of history, there is a statue that is a sailor kissing a nurse. This statue was named “Unconditional Surrender,” it was from a photograph from World War II, in 1944. As we were getting ready to head back to the boat and fix chicken wings for the four of us (Sean, Hazel, Charlie, and I,) a man approached us and said “Hey! I know you!” It turns out that we have run into Mark Mills, this guy worked at Turner Marine, in Mobile. Mark and his wife sailed down from Mobile on their sail boat “Arianna.” We were then introduced to his wife, Anna, and we invited them to join us for dinner! This would be the first pot luck dinner aboard the MV “Bama Belle.” Charlie and I fixed chicken wings and deviled eggs. Sean and Hazel brought over a magnificent salad. Mark and Anna brought over this great cheese and cracker platter and some of the best baked beans we have eaten in a long time. We would laugh, and talk the night away.
Sunday morning we would be greeted by Sean, wanting to know if we wanted to go explore one of the nearby local beaches (this beach is supposedly rated the #2 beach in the world.) Woo Hoo!! Off in the dinks again and headed across the bay. We would come up upon a very pretty park! This park had something we had never seen before, a sign that would say for boats only and no swimming. We beached the dinks, and went for a very nice walk on beach! From the beach, well, what else to do but go explore more things! We found the Sarasota Yacht Club, the boats there made the ones at Marina Jacks look kind of small! We continued underneath the Ringling Brothers Bridge, and found the local town dock! Now, we were in business, the grocery store would be directly across the street! From here new plans were made! We headed back to the boats, made lunch, and a grocery list! Back out in the dinks headed to the store! Every time that we have gotten groceries we have had a new experience. The highlight of this trip would be after buying more groceries then you could possibly carry across the street, our plan was we would once again roll the buggy all the way back to the dinghy and then bring it back. The fun started when we were happily pushing our goodies down the parking lot, and the front wheels on the buggy lock up! Now days, you cannot take your buggy’s from the parking lots, as for a little device will come out and lock up the wheels when you cross the barrier. Charlie went back and got us another buggy and we took it out a different direction. AH HA!! This time we got out of the parking lot. We ended up carrying the groceries across the street. Now, we would be headed back to the boats to unload. Monday would be another new experience for us! The original plan was to take the dink over to Marina Jacks, we would dock her for the day, and then head to the Ringling Brothers Circus Museum! We would go across and wait for Sean and Hazel, to come and meet us, call a cab, and head to the museum. While waiting at Marina Jacks, Charlie received a phone call from Hazel, saying that the wind has kicked up way too much and they are going to stay with their boat. At this time we took a second look at the wind and realized that it would be better to head back to the boat. The weather report had stated that we had sustained winds of 27 mph gusting to 39 mph! In this kind of situation you never know if your anchor is going to hold, of even a more dangerous scenario, some one else’s anchor not holding. There were a couple boats that had drug their anchor a little bit but, they solved the problems quickly. Thankfully, our anchor kept us in the exact same area that we put it out at! What a good feeling!!! Finally, the wind had subsided to a reasonable speed. Tonight would be the BCS National Championship Football Game! All four of us, hopped back in the dinks and headed towards the nearby sports bar to watch the game! Charlie, of course was pulling for the SEC and the "Kitty Kats"or Auburn Tigers, and the rest of us were Oregon Duck fans. Even though the first half was very exciting, it was time to go and head back. The plans were to pull anchor in the morning and head to Pelican Pass, located west of Punta Gorda, Fl.
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