This pretty bird posed
nicely for me (and let me get 2 feet away from him?her?)
We had a great evening with Arturo on Thursday. We gave him
a tour of Blossom and the guys caught up on their adventures since having left
their old jobs. We enjoyed a very good meal at the Crow’s Nest Restaurant. The
stone crabs were delicious!
Yum!
Blossom docked at
Crow’s Nest with her fender boards down
Thursday night the storm came through - it was a doozey.
Blossom got a nice shower and most of the salt was washed away. By the afternoon the sun was out and it was
actually warm and sunny. We haven’t had many days like that since we got to
Florida! There was a huge swell from the gulf so we had to put out our fender
boards. We rocked and rolled all day and used every long fender we had on the fixed dock
here. We played with fenders and lines
several times over the day making sure that we weren’t rubbing or banging the
pilings. A guy from the marina said that we’ve had a crazy high tide today,
maybe from the wind and swell as well.
View from the aft of
Blossom, Venice Inlet
Martin and I went for a walk to enjoy the sun in the
afternoon. Venice looks like a really nice small town. It seemed like everyone
was out at the inlet, strolling or fishing.
Super high water
breaking over the jetty
High tide flooding
the path
Friday night we ate out again, this time more casually
downstairs. It was crazy busy and we’re glad we went early. I
also needed an early night as it looks like I’ve caught Martin’s cough/cold and
we planned to head out in the morning.
Friday night was rough – I was awake for much of
it. We had the strangest phenomenon occurring and it was driving me nuts. There
was no wind and the water looked dead calm. But we were set in a rhythmic
motion that continued for over 12 hours. We’d be (blissfully) still for about
20 seconds. Then a slight rock, rock, Rock, Rock, ROCK, ROCK, Rock, Rock, rock,
rock, still. It took about 2-4 minutes to complete the cycle and at the peak we
would slamming against the fender/pilon and it would even be hard to walk
around the boat. By morning it had stopped but it caused a fitful night for
both me and Martin.
Saturday was forecast to be a gorgeous day with another big
wind/rain storm coming in early Sunday morning. We headed out at slack and planned to arrive on a rising tide in Sarasota. The entrance to Longboat Key Club Moorings isn’t
terribly deep - 7 feet mlw (we draw about 6’8”). It was a gorgeous day. We passed by some beautiful
scenery, requested 4 bridge openings and saw countless brown and white pelicans. The sun was
shining, it was warm and we had all our doors open. A nice dewy morning meant I
got my workout in by swabbing the decks as we went along and got to enjoy the
view to boot. It was a pretty ideal cruising day.
The view along the
way…
Sail boat races
underway on a Saturday morning
Longboat Key Club Moorings is a new marina for us. It was
recommended by Bob & Holly from Scamper who we met last spring in the
Bahamas. They were good sports about us stalking them at Black Point to ask
about their davit controller (ours broke and we were desperate to figure
out what exactly was broken). So it’s very cool that we’re able to check out
Longboat this year and hook up with them - they’ll be here for a few days this
coming week and we’re looking forward to reconnecting with them.
And as I was typing this last paragraph, we had yet another serendipitous
encounter (that seems to be the word for this month J Just as I writing this, we
were approaching a bridge that is under repairs so only the eastern span can open.
Half a bridge opening (ultimately, the bridge farther north ended up calling this bridge tender on the phone to let him know we were trying to reach him!)
There’s a note on Active Captain that the water is extremely
shallow there to the north as well. Martin was trying to raise the bridge
tender on the radio but having no joy. It seems his radio was broken. Out of
the VHF ether a voice was heard, “Blossom this is Scamper, try him on…”. They were on the ICW heading south toward us!
We passed by and I got a great photo:
Here they come!
Scamper and crew
They’re spending a couple days down in Venice and will be
returning Monday. We’re looking forward to catching up with them Monday night!
We arrived around 1pm on a low but rising tide and at the
shallowest point saw .2' under the keel. The marina is gorgeous and huge! First things first, we put out our fender
boards again. We're expecting up to 30k winds, severe gusting and thunderstorms and possible the threat of a tornado tonight. (I put out an extra line or two as well.) Then we walked down to the ship’s store/marina office/pool/restaurant end, checked
in, and met the very friendly staff. I think we're taking the rest of the day off, I'm hoping a nap will help kick this cold to the curb.
I’m really excited about exploring the marina. It’s actually
a resort with multiple restaurants, a swimming pool, tennis courts, gym, a spa.
Oh yeah, this is going to be fun! There are bike trails too. And we can bike
down to Mote Aquarium and St. Armands Circle with amazing shops and restaurants
(or take a free shuttle if it’s raining). And to top it all off we have family in town. Martin’s cousin Penny lives on Longboat Key and cousin Brenda
& Syd snowbird in Sarasota every winter. We’re very much looking forward to
getting together with them! As an added bonus, my Dad and step-Mom are coming
to visit for a few days as well. They winter in Cocoa Beach so it’s a fairly
short trip for them to come over and see us.
So here we are, very much looking forward to the fabulous 2
weeks ahead of us!
Boat Business:
- Bilge. We have dripless shafts on both engines so we have a “dry bilge” - there should never be any water down there. We’ve notice small amounts of salt water coming into the bilge. It’s not enough to set off the bilge pump and we weren’t sure if it was just splashing around from having burped the shaft seals. However, Martin dried out the bilge yesterday and I found a trickle of salt water once again in the forward bilge, and a slight amount in the aft bilge (which the forward drains into). It’s not the main or wing engine shafts that we can see so we’ll have to go exploring this weekend.
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