Sarasota to Ft. Myers 1/11/2011 - 1/15/2011

We enjoyed our stay in Sarasota very much. It was time to depart and head to Pelican Pass, that was the plan anyway. This would be a nice long ride, we were set to cruise 52 miles. Once again we were greeted with a beautiful sunrise, and calm waters! The strong gusty winds from yesterday had died down.

It took us approximately 6 hours to reach Pelican Pass. This would be another place to anchor for the night. Once we approached the anchorage, conversation between Sean and Charlie, they decided that this would not be a good place. The wind would be coming from the north east. We need to be near land that would protect us, from the high winds expected that night. The journey continued to another spot that we may be able to throw the anchor. We ran into issues getting in there too. Seems as if there was not enough water for us to get to the cove that we were headed for. MV “Stella Maris,” ran aground rounding the corner, and then of course we ran aground too! Thankfully the bottom was sand where all this took place, both of the boats were throttled up and our motor pushed us out of the sand. Third time is a charm, right? Well, not exactly today. We were told about another anchorage but we were not quite clear where it was, therefore we past that one up too. It was now almost dark, we needed a place to dock. This put us in the coolest place for a couple days. This would be a 100 acre private  island called “Cabbage Key.” The only way that you can get to this island is by boat.
We went up to the restaurant after we had gotten all secured. This was a very nice place so we actually did clean up a little. When you walk into the door, there are thousands and thousands of dollar bills taped on the walls. I think they estimated that there was $82,000. When the dollars fall off of the wall they are gathered up and given to charity. They have donated over $80,000. They also have dollars that have been signed by people like Jimmy Buffet and John F Kennedy Jr. The bartender, who’s last name is Fish, that is also what he was called! This man was extremely funny! He could pop off one liner jokes one after another! We ended up eating dinner at the bar, it was so good! Thankfully, we had decided to stay there for two nights. The next morning we would be faced with two weeks worth of laundry! Now, these places don’t have the best of machines. It took us almost all day to complete this chore. We did take time out, to go out on the dink with Sean and Hazel, to another island that had a beautiful beach. There were some fallen trees that had really neat root systems. They were laying partially in the water, one even had an old crab trap wrapped around it. On Cabbage Key, there is a wooden water tower, it just happens to be the highest point on the island. We climbed to the top to watch the sunset. It was amazing. From Cabbage Key, we would make it to our next destination in a little over 5 hours to, Fort Myers.

Once again, the idea would be to anchor out. The problem was because of all the north wind that had been blowing, it has blown a lot of water out into the Gulf of Mexico, making the water very shallow. After a few incidents of running aground, once again we were headed to a marina. This one would be, Ft. Myers Yacht Basin. This marina sits right in between two bridges, it’s a very unique location. Docking again, would be another challenge. Trying to dock this 39’ boat in a slip that was designed for a 50’ or longer boat was of course another interesting experience. Thankfully, there were several dock masters there. These guys hopped onto the boat, grabbed the lines and then got us all taken care of.

The evening would be spent with Sean and Hazel, as we made a quick little pot luck dinner, and watched part of a movie (Charlie kept falling asleep!) Friday would be spent getting things together so we could depart Ft. Myers in the morning! Sadly, we would be leaving MV “Stella Maris,” and Sean and Hazel behind. They had company flying in later that week. They will be catching up to us soon. We spent the evening together, and said our good byes. I am learning on this trip that all of the people we have met so far, you bond with very quickly, and then they become family.

We would be up before daylight and pulling out of our slip at sunrise. We have a long ways to go, an early start is a must. Sean was gracious enough to help us get out of our slip, made it go very smooth! Once again, waved good bye, and we were on our way. I am anxiously waiting for them to catch up, and we haven’t even gotten all the way out of the marina yet!

St. Pete Beach Pass-A-Grille Marina to Island Park, Sarasota, Fl. 1/7/2011-1/11/2011

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.

Tarpon Springs to Pass-A-Grille Marina, St. Pete Beach 1/4/2011 to 1/7/2011

After getting setteled in at the City Marina in Tarpon Springs, we finally got to meet our new friends on the MV “Stella Maris“ in person! Sean Jahr and his girlfriend Hazel Thomson. Our chat would be short because everyone wanted to take a nap, after the 22 hour adventure in the dark! We took a short walk to a small, locally owned, greek restaurant. I would tell you the name but I have no clue how to spell it or pronounce it, so I will just say it was a great place to eat lunch at! Gyros and a huge greek salad, it was delicious! We made a mad dash for the boat, we were so exhausted. We took about a 3 hour nap, got up just in time for dinner! On our way out we met the other couple that traveled with us on MV “Yesterdays Dream.“ Steve and Linda Franco. Had another short visit and headed out to get something to eat! Imagine another greek restaurant! Tarpon Springs is the Greek capitol of the US. We went to a place called Costas. This place is famous for its greek salad! They build the salad over a scoop of their own potato salad! We had a great dinner, plus 2 for 1 Sangrias made everything just right, to head back to the boat and go to sleep! The next morning, after all the chores were done, we got our bikes down so we could ride to West Marine and get a few things that the boat was in desperate need for! Our ride through town was very pretty, although we had to stop several times and ask for directions, we finally made it. We also decided to run in and get a few groceries, since the store was across the street! We have now learned a new lesson about hauling water! Buying the big 2 ½ gallon jugs is a lot cheaper then getting bottles! Sounded like a great idea at the time! When we got the bikes loaded down with everything we bought, the water was to much weight for our little rack to hold! I (Brandy) decided that since my back pack was virtually empty that I could haul the water and the ½ Gallon of milk. On our ride back to the boat on the Pinellas Bike Trail, that runs the distance of the entire county, those 3 gallons of liquid began to get very heavy! Although, Everything that we had bought, once again made it safely back to the boat. Later that evening, one of Charlie’s long time friends, Diane Gillmore Williams, was going to pick us up and take us to her house. Charlie and Diane go way back, into their high School years in Orange, California. They had a lot of catching up to! We met her husband “Stu,” and their great big cat “Chad.” We had a great conversation and shared pictures. The stories from the past, and what had been going on with each others families, it was a lot of fun to listen to! We took a ride on Diane and Stu’s golf cart. They took us around their neat little town, Ozona. It was hard to believe that there were million dollar mansions, amongst the plain old everyday houses! We stopped at the local pier, where neighbors gather to watch the sunsets, and another local marina called “The Speckled Trout.” Seafood would be on the list for dinner tonight! We arrived at “Molly Hammerheads,” that had a parking lot just for the golf carts! The food was excellent, in a great atmosphere. It was a very short ride back to the Williams house, where we had to change from the golf cart, to the car, and head back to the marina.

     Once again, we slept in, as I guess we didn’t catch up on our sleep! The plan was to head out, and run the 37 miles to Pass-A-Grille Marina! We waited for Sean and Hazel to get back from breakfast, and all 3 of our boats were headed out of Tarpon Springs! I think, I forgot to mention that Tarpon Springs is also the sea sponge capitol of the U.S. Once again, MV “Stella Maris,” MV “Yesterdays Dream,” followed by MV “Bama Belle” would be going down the Anclote River. We would be leaving MV “Yesterdays Dream,” as they were only planning the short jump to Honeymoon Island.

     After another beautiful day on the water, the arrival into Pass-A-Grille was anything but pleasant! Both “Stella Maris” and “Bama Belle” got into low water, which caused us to stir up some mud! The wind got to blowing around 20 to 25 mph. The wind was blowing so hard in the direction that would push the boats away from the dock, made the approach and the whole docking process a night mare! Especially for me, the rookie on board! I have learned that trying to move this large vessel sideways in the strong wind, is like trying to move a car with its parking breaks on! Finally, after both of us were successful in getting completely tied to the floating dock, we all walked up to the local pub “The Wharf,” for dinner! After this not so much fun experience of docking in the wind, we all needed a drink! The food was awesome! We ate anything from: buffalo wings, buffalo shrimp, conch fritters, lobster bites, and prime rib! We all felt like someone should carry us back to our boats in a wheel barrow! Before we untied the lines and head east to Sarasota, we wanted to go to the little deli, and go across to St. Petersburg Beach. This was the coolest little deli, it had all kinds of food! It had everything! We then walked the whole entire 3 blocks across the island, to the beach! We took a short walk down the beach, found a few shells, enjoyed the smells and the sounds of the beach. Time to head back to the boats, and make our journey to Sarasota!

Crossing Florida's Big Bend January 3, 2011 - January 4, 2011

The morning of January the 3^rd, 2011 Charlie had made a list of things that we needed to do to prepare for the “crossing!” Our plan was to depart Carrabelle the next day. This would be the only time that the MV “Bama Belle” would leave the site of land on this entire adventure!

We spent most of the morning, getting everything ready. We had a “ditch bag” full of food, life vests, flares, and other safety devices just in case we had to leave the boat! We had been watching a boat that had been anchored out in front of us over the weekend! It looked as if this boat and another one was leaving! Charlie, gave them a call over the radio! Her name is the MV “Stella Maris!” It turns out that they were headed out to make the big crossing! We had wished that we had talked to them earlier, because it would have been nice to have a buddy boat! MV “Yesterday’s Dream” (the second boat) radioed over to see how long it would take us to get ready! We told them that we could be pulling out of the slip in one hour. Believe it or not, MV “Bama Belle,” was loaded up everything was complete, even took the time to say good by to our new friends at Dockside Marina, and she pulled out of her slip in exactly one hour!

We were able to catch up with our buddy boats on the east end of Dog Island (just outside of Carrabelle!) We headed out towards the Gulf of Mexico around 1:00 pm. This would be the beginning of our overnight, 150 mile off shore adventure! The beautiful MV “Stella Maris” in the lead, followed by MV Yesterday’s Dream, and heading up the pack would be the MV “Bama Belle!” Oh yea! Brandy, was singing the theme song to “Gilligans Island,” almost the entire trip!

We all had introduced ourselves over the radio. Sean and Hazel were aboard “Stella Maris,” and Steve and Linda, aboard “Yesterday’s Dream!” Having all these boats traveling together giving us entertainment by being able to chat with each other, and share some great stories, made this trip more enjoyable.
As the sun was going down, making for a very pretty sunset, we were all entertained by several dolphins! They love to get in your wake and run along side the boat! Entertaining us also before it was dark were the many different species of birds! Pelicans, Seagulls, and Osprey made up most of them! Watching them do the 100 mile an hour nose dives right into the water and catch fish. Its really neat to watch!
Now, when we left Carrabelle, the seas were very nice and quite. The weather forecast was stating that the seas would be one foot or less all night long! Unfortunately, the weather man forgot the 4 hours in the middle of the night, where we encountered 2-3 foot seas! Let me tell you, She got a little bouncy in here! As soon as we could see daylight starting to appear, the winds and the wave calmed down enough to make the rest of our journey into Tarpon Springs, Fl very pleasurable.

Finally, we have made it to our destination, the City Marina in Tarpon Springs, Fl. It only took us from the time we untied in Carrabelle, to being completely docked in Tarpon Springs took a grand total of 22 hours. The trip was an awesome adventure! We were so fortunate to be able to share this experience with our new friends that we have never seen in person, only talked to by radio! If we ever make this part of the journey again, I would want to do it in the company of MV “Stella Maris” and MV “Yesterdays Dream!” I would like to express our gratitude to these two boats to put their journey on hold for an hour, so we could travel with them!



Apalachicola, Fl. to Carrabelle December 22 - January 3, 2011

From Apalachicola at daylight so we could get over to Dockside Marina in Carrabelle, Fl. where the mechanic would be waiting for us! It took us 4 hours to make it 27 miles, the weather was beautiful the seas were great, and watched an amazing sunrise. The mechanic Eric Pfeufer met us at the dock! He hopped right in and got to work! WOW!! Amazing service! While we all thought we were dealing with a bad fuel injector, we got quite a surprise when that wasn't the case after all!! It turns out that a valve keeper had broke and was no longer holding the valve in the cylinder. The stars must have all been in the right order because for some reason (we are very thankful) the valve did not drop! The parts were ordered right away. Mastery Marine in St. Petersburg, Fl. is where this little part was coming from! Wouldn't you know that they would closing the entire week between Christmas and New Years! With any luck they could overnight the parts. Unfortunately the parts did not make it the next day! Looks like Christmas would be spent in Carrabelle!

Christmas eve day was spent across the river at C-Quarters doing laundry and grocery shopping at the IGA. Since neither of us have had much experience on the whole "laundry mat" thing. This is a new experience! We never realized how hard it would be to find enough quarters in a tiny little town to do a couple loads of clothes! We ended up making several trips to the grocery store asking them for quarters! The last of the laundry was put into the dryer, time to go back to the IGA and get groceries!

We were having a great time filling the buggy up with all kinds of goodies! It wasn't till we checked out that we realized that we needed to get all of this stuff back to the dinghy at C-Quarters! I (Brandy) elected myself to push the buggy from the store down the road back to the marina! I felt like a bum! Although it worked out great and yes, I pushed it all the way back!!

Christmas was great! We had a nice quite day! We cooked a turkey breast, stuffing and some green beans for dinner! Had our own nice little celebration!

Finally! The parts are in and we are getting repaired! To our amazement we would have never guessed that this tiny little part would be such a pain to install. Since, it was almost dark we could not go for a sea trial today, but would be the first thing on the list to do in the morning!

Thursday, December 30th the "MV Bama Belle" went out on a sea trail and received a clean bill of health! There is no longer any signs of smoke, engine sounds perfect, and it all looks like we are ready to make the big crossing!

Weather would be the only delay now! Because, we are going to venture out into the Gulf of Mexico on a 150 mile run, the seas ant the wind need to be just right! The delay allowed us to spend a lot more time with the Pfeufer family!

We were invited to go out and listen to Eric's band play on New Years Eve, by Gavin. Gavin is one of Eric's son that said he would be happy to pick us up at the Marina and take us to Hamaknockers in Panacea, Fl. This little BBQ joint had some of the best food we had eaten yet! The band started playing around 8:30pm and of course we stayed until the ball dropped at midnight and rung the New Year in with a midnight beer!
 

Let me tell you about MS Dockside Marina in Carrabelle. This is a family owned and operated place! I will tell you that if you are going to be stuck somewhere for any length of time, this is the place to be! This family and entire marina welcomed us with open arms, and took us in and offered to be of any assistance that we needed! They loaned us their vehicles so we could run into town! We spent several days using their electricity! We can not express how much we appreciated the hospitality! We would like to thank Eric, Angela, Bryce, Gavin, and the rest of Dockside Marina for everything!

Dec. 20, 2010 Panama City to Apalachicola, Fl.

We started the day off with great weather and smooth water. Departing around 9:00 am from Panama City, Florida. Today’s run would not be too long, approximately 6 hours to our destination, White City! Leaving Panama City, we got to enjoy a show put on by a 50’ Naval Hover Craft running probably 50 miles an hour. It came up on us quickly with a roar and lots of water being blown from its air ride. Three of the yellow Mercury Engine test boats were cruising by us at 50 to 70 miles an hour. The test drivers would wave at us when they saw us taking their picture. Hey, we felt like we were sitting still when they came racing by. We are cruising at a warp speed of 8 and ½ miles an hour. We don’t miss a thing. We enjoyed watching the dolphin playing in our wake!

White City is just a few miles down the ICW from Port St. Joe. There is a small park, with a floating dock (a dock that will fall and rise with the tides,) a few houses a little ways down the road! Needless to say there is not a whole lot there!
UH-OH!! Blue smoke coming from the exhaust! Can’t be a good thing but…lets hope for the best! Checking out the gauges and watching the RPM and our speed everything looks normal! We had to make a few phone calls to get an idea why we were all of a sudden pouring blue smoke out of our exhaust. We contacted our local mechanic in Mobile, Paul Dunham. Made a call to one of Brandy’s friends, John Messier, talked to a mechanic, Robert Hayes from Port Saint Joe, that was off of work for the week. Robert, did refer us to a Yanmar Factory Mechanic, in Carrabelle, at Dockside Marina. Robert, deserves many thanks for stopping at our dock on his way home that morning to help us diagnose the problem. Our number two cylinder was not firing.
We were going to need a mechanic, the decision was made to take it very easy on the engine and keep moving east. We took our time and made the short little hop to Apalachicola.

Arriving in Apalachicola, early in the afternoon allowed us to get the bicycles down from the fly bridge and take them for a spin! We toured this neat little historic town. Of all things to be invented in Florida. Would you believe the ice machine was? We wanted to try out the baskets on the bikes so, what could be better then groceries? Everything made it back to the boat in one piece the groceries, the bikes, and even the riders!! AMAZING!!
We really enjoyed the exercise as too.
From the bike ride to a stroll down the long dock, to the covered viewing area to watch the sunset! The shrimp boat passing the marsh in the purple sky, made a great picture! Another enjoyable day on the water.