St. Petersburg, Florida

We’ve just spent a fantastic week+ in St. Petersburg, FL. Originally, we had planned on staying here for no more than a few days, but somehow that turned into over a week and we’ve loved it!

We stayed at the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina. The marina is huge and is in an excellent location – right downtown. We were at the far southern tip, adjacent to the Albert Whitted airport so we watched small planes and helicopters taking off during the day. It reminded us of home. It’s walking distance to restaurants, theaters, museums, bars…you name it.  There’s so much going on here that we could stay for much, much longer. We’re heading out because we have a “goal” (we’re loathe to use the word “plan”), and we’re anxious to get the Bahamas this winter. But we’ll definitely be back on the west coast of Florida again. We’d love to spend a couple months or more exploring the area.

View of our dock

Views from the boat

 

Cormorants living in the marina. I've never seen them with such pretty white markings

One of my favorite activities in St. Pete’s has been the Saturday farmers market which we were lucky enough to visit twice. It’s a great, even better than the Lake Merritt market I used to visit every weekend when I lived in Oakland, CA. We also went to a great show at the Palladium– the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, all the way from New Zealand.  It was so much fun!  We didn’t really know what to expect but it turned out to be a super entertaining show. St. Pete’s is home to the Dali Museum as well and we stopped by to see the exhibit “Dali/Picasso, Picasso/Dali. This style of art isn’t my favorite but I learned a lot and found it very interesting! Our last day in town we visited the Chihuly Collection at the Moran Art Center. It’s a small collection but it was stunning.

The Dali Museum

Chihuly

We got a bit of exercise while here, walking around town and also checking out the Pinellas County bike path that our friends Atle and Kristina told us about. We rode over 18 miles out of town and it was beautiful!  It was a little difficult returning to the boat, we’re not exactly in shape for a 36 mile ride, but it just shows how much fun we were having J 

I’m really very taken with St. Petes, it’s my favorite Florida town that we’ve visited so far. There are so many restaurants, all seemingly fantastic (and we visited quite a few!). There’s a local university so there are lots of young people and night life including a lot of live music. There are museums, stadiums, theaters, marinas…a bike trail that goes on forever. We’ve only had a week to explore and then only by foot and bike, but wow!

And with all that, the actual highlight(s) of our stay here have been the visiting that we’ve been able to do with friends.  When we first arrived we got to meet up with good friends of Sean & Louise, Ben & Karen. We had a great meal in town. Then a very close friend of mine from high school, Amy, came to visit with her youngest daughter and her parents. I hadn’t seen her parents or daughter in over 10 years. Her daughter has changed a lot since she was 6 months old J  It was such a great reunion!  The day passed far too quickly.

Dave, Pat, Amy & Katy

Amy & Me

Then we had two fantastic evenings with a couple that we had met back in ’09 when we were cruising on Lucky. We met Amy & Kurt in Atlantis (Bahamas). They were on the dock with their Tiara (a larger version of Lucky) and we stopped by say hello.  Since then we’ve kept in touch via Facebook. They came to see Blossom and we went out to a great dinner. The next evening they invited us to their beach house for an amazing dinner. We enjoyed their gracious hospitality so much. I hope that we’ll see them again soon out in the Bahamas!

Me and Amy

I know I’ve said it before, really, we meet the most amazingly wonderful people cruising…

And now it’s time to move on to Sarasota. We have family and friends there so we’re looking forward to our visit. We left this morning for a long, slow day. There’s a trouble spot between here and Sarasota (shallow and current-y) so we need to watch tide and tidal current which are most favorable in the late afternoon. We also would like to get to the marina before dark. And there’s a wind advisory out today, with winds gusting up to 30 as the day progresses. So we left before the wind started blowing, putted along as slow as we could. Right now we’re hanging on the hook waiting for the water to rise and current to subside a bit, so we can pass Jewfish Key.  The adventure is on!

*Update* I wasn’t able to get this blog entry posted before our arrival. The “trouble spot” proved to be fine. We followed Vector and they gave us depth readings (they draw a foot less than us). We never saw less than 8+ feet at high tide. Getting docked was more challenging. The winds were picking up considerably by the time we arrived in Sarasota (as predicted).  We got in to position to enter our slip at Marina Jacks to find that the slip was too short for us to properly secure our bow. Though I gave them the dimensions for our boat, we’re a very big boat for our length. So the added windage was a concern. The marina was great, the dock master saw us enter, saw our size, and called us to tell us that they were going to relocate us to a 100 foot slip on the other side of the marina. We may have to move before Thursday if its regular occupant returns, but it won’t be under such windy conditions. More on Sarasota in our next blog post!

Boat Business:  Nothing to report. We’ve been at the dock with all systems functioning well. We have arranged for a wash/wax and warranty service in North Palm Beach. We’ll also be taking care of a list of maintenance items while we’re there.