St. Pete-Clearwater meetups

We are underway southbound in Tampa Bay, approaching the Sunshine Skyway Bridge as I begin typing, after a couple of very pleasant weeks in the St Petersburg/Clearwater area. We're headed for the Gulf ICW and the southbound run back to Sanibel Island, where we will have to choose between the lake and Keys routes back to the east coast.

I'm a lucky guy. Flanked by Karen and Louise at the Clearwater mural. Photo: Ben Willmore, Digital Mastery

Shortly after my last post we arrived to the Pass-a-Grille inlet, where we found depths over the bar of just 7.9' at a tide of 1.1'. We made our way to a new spot for us, an anchorage in a small embayment near Isla del Sol (map), which we entered from the northwest. We tendered over to the Tierra Verde dry stack marina, across the channel, heavily damaged in the storms. They let us tie up to go eat in the on-premise Italian restaurant, Circo, which was quite good.

Sunset over Pass-a-Grille from the Isla del Sol anchorage.

After dinner we strolled the island a bit, passing the well-protected Port 32 marina, which is a longer tender ride but also has an on-site restaurant. I stayed up late for the lunar eclipse; I tried to get a photo but my phone was not up to the challenge. In the morning we waited until 10:30 to leave so we would have plenty of tide for the shallow spot, where on this pass we found 8.9' on a tide of 0.9'. We can only guess that high offshore winds had lowered the gulf side water level by more than a foot on our way in.

Best my phone could do with the lunar eclipse.

The run to Clearwater inlet was flat calm, and I only had to dodge and weave a little traffic on the way into the harbor. We arrived at the dock, spun around into the current, and tied up on the face dock, girding ourselves for the inevitable slop that makes its way down the channel there. No sooner did we have all the lines on than Shannon, the very pleasant dockmaster, offered us a more protected spot around the corner on the perpendicular face dock almost under the bridge (map). It was a bit tricky getting the boat in there in the cross-current, but we knew it would be more comfortable.

Vector at Clearwater Harbor Marina, as seen from the city pier (remnant of old drawbridge).

In the evening we strolled through the fancy new Coachman Park, under construction on our last visit, to downtown Clearwater, where we met up with Karen and Ben for a nice dinner at Olive & Thyme. After walking Louise back to Vector, I set out on foot to collect an Amazon package from the nearby locker and then walk the mile or so to the UPS Access Point in the CVS for yet more packages. When I arrived back at the dock the current had reversed, and it was pushing Vector so far off the dock I could not re-board. I ended up handing the pack off to Louise and then doing an assisted tight-rope walk on a dock line to get aboard until we could tighten all the lines on the next ebb.

Being nearly directly under the bridge wreaked havoc with our Starlink as well as our GPS. That big red blotch is all position error.

The signature feature of Coachman Park is the Baycare Sound amphitheater. When I watched it going up I imagined it as a local civic event center, but it gets the headliners, and Saturday we were bombarded with sound checks for the evening's Foreigner concert, fronted by 38 Special. In the afternoon we put the scooters on the ground and made a run to Publix before heading off to Ben and Karen's place for a wonderful homemade seafood pasta dinner. We returned to the waterfront right at intermission; having missed 38 Special we got to hear all the top Foreigner hits, just a bit muted, right from Vector. It was over by 10:45.

Baycare Sound from our deck, in the rain. Getting ready for Diana Ross.

Sunday an enormous storm blew through, complete with tornado warnings, pinning us on the boat most of the day. A gap in the rain let us get out for dinner in the evening, but just ahead of a Diana Ross concert in the amphitheater, every downtown restaurant was packed, with waits of a half hour or longer. I walked down the block until I found a joint with open tables, a sports bar called Prelude that had just been open a few weeks. The food and service were good, but the place had a faint smell of old cigarette smoke, most likely left over from whatever had been there before. We won't be back unless it is pleasant enough to eat outside.

The storm drains on the bridge just dump straight down, making this pattern on the water.

The Diana Ross fans got a reprieve, with the rain completely gone by the time we finished dinner, and the concert delayed by just a half hour to mop things up. I walked around the venue and spent a little time listening to her -- she's still got it after all these years. (Foreigner's lone original member is the same age, 80.) Tickets are expensive and there are lots of rules in the venue, but if you don't mind your view being obstructed by a mesh fence, there's a place in the park to bring your folding chair and hear the whole thing for free.

The view from the cheap seats. That's Diana Ross. I had to stand on my toes to see over the fence.

On the way to dinner Saturday I had noticed the fancy LED position light on the front of Louise's new scooter was flashing. We got some masking tape from Ben to cover it for the ride home, but Sunday I tore into the fairing to either fix it or disconnect it. I ended up doing the latter until I can work on it closer to the boat.

On St. Patty's eve, our friend and professional musician Dave Rowe streamed an Irish-themed concert and we were happy to "attend," stout in hand.

The rest of the week was fairly quiet, and in addition to knocking out a few projects, we got lots of errands done. We both had doctor's appointments, and we hit all the shopping that often requires wheels, including Total Wine, Walmart, and Costco. At this latter stop I found a deal on a tablet to replace the one Louise has been using for charts underway, which has slowed to an absolute crawl. I had several walks to the Amazon locker throughout the week.

Storms blow a lot of debris around and after the first big blow I found this play ball wedged under our lines. I cleaned it up and left it in the very nice modern playground at the adjacent park, and I was happy to see children playing with it the next few days.

We hit two more downtown restaurants, including perennial favorite Clear Sky, which we all hit on St. Pats, and Downtown Pizza on our final night. We met Karen, after Ben left town on business, at the Brew Garden Taphouse, where a pizza on the menu is named for her, and she fed us at home on her last night in town.

Roseate spoonbill feeding in the shallows under the bridge, not far from Vector.

I had originally booked six nights, with our departure coinciding with Karen leaving town, however shortly after arriving I learned that the week rate was actually cheaper, and so we extended one night and got a partial refund, reminding me to always check on such things. That let us get the scooters back on deck at our leisure rather than on departure morning. It was a great stay in Clearwater, however the new park has eliminated the free parking near the waterfront. We got parking tickets on the scooters for locking them to a bike rack before I found a more legal place for them overnight, in the old city hall lot.

The storm took out the northern access to the courtesy dock, which we used so often on our last visit.

On Friday we were all set to leave at 9:45 to time the drawbridges on the southbound run, but it was blowing 25-30 knots and the wind had us pinned to the dock, even as the current was trying to push us the other way. With boat-eating metal parts protruding from the dock both ahead and astern of us, I could not afford to be blown back on a failed attempt, and we waved off after ten minutes of trying.

Departure time. 25-30kt on the starboard beam, pinning us to the dock.

We tried again at 10:45, with the same result, and we finally made it off the dock at 11:45. That put us in a fair tide and we reached the first bridge a half hour early, which had me scrambling to make the next bridge in half an hour rather than the planned 40 minutes. When we left two hours late I though we would not make St. Pete before closing, but we made up an hour and were pulling up to the yacht club docks (map) at 4:30.

Theses pilings precluded "hopping" along the face of the dock to open water. We were nestled between two of them.

The St. Pete yacht club has completely replaced their docks since our last visit, and these are nice sturdy concrete floating docks, a real luxury here. We were again able to offload the scooters the next day and stash them in the club garage.

A view inside Baycare Sound on a quiet day.

We had a whirlwind week catching up with friends, including Alex, Dori and Bob, Diane and JP, and Steph and Martin, who fed us at their house twice. We also hit familiar downtown restaurants including Bella Brava and Red Mesa, which seems to have declined a bit since our last visit. We had dinner for the first time ever at Grille 1909 in the club, which we've always enjoyed at breakfast or lunch, but have now decided that the lounge is probably a better dinner option. I also got a pizza one night from Oak & Stone, when Louise was suffering a particularly bad allergy day.

In our cheapy folding chairs waiting for the show Hair to start.

Our first night at the dock I noticed moving theatrical lighting on booms at the park across the way, but the concert music I expected to go along with that never came. The next day I wandered over to discover it was the setup for a theater-in-the-park production of Hair, and that must have been one of the final lighting setup nights. The next couple of days we could hear rehearsals. We would still be at the docks when the show opened in previews, and I bought BYO-chair seating for the first night. The music and voices were fantastic and it was a great production. The nude scene and some of the more violent parts were omitted, but overall a great show, provided you understand that the whole show is basically a 1968 acid trip.

The set at intermission. Photos are not allowed during the performance.

When we had booked, the club could only take us at the dock until Friday morning, in part because lots of boats were coming in for the big Key West themed street party along with the grand opening celebration for the new docks, as well as the annual blessing of the fleet scheduled for today. And so Friday morning we topped up the water, offloaded the trash, and boarded the scooters before checkout time, figuring to anchor someplace for a couple of nights.

St. Pete from atop the St. Pete Pier building.

Just as we were getting ready to single up lines, the dockmaster came over to say they could accommodate us longer if we could just move forward a couple dozen feet. Given the chaos of the weekend we were not really surprised that things had changed, and we were happy to just line forward and move our power plug to extend our stay by another two nights.

I was up on deck to catch what I thought would be the tail end of a sunrise solar eclipse, but the eclipse ended just moments before sunrise. We needed to be on the east coast to catch it. So you just get a sunrise photo instead.

That meant we could go to the big block party, and the club was able to give us last-minute tickets. It was a great event with a fantastic band playing all the hits of our younger years, with a great food spread and free-flowing beer and wine to boot. We sat with friends Steph, Dori, and Martin and met a bunch of other club members as well. We have not danced that much in a long time, and we were a bit sore the next day.

Martin, Steph, Dori, Louise, and I at the Key West block party. The hat was my nod to the theme.

That did not stop us from strolling the weekly Saturday Market, where we picked up some excellent breakfast sandwiches from Kurt's Sausages. We also found a couple of bagels for the next day, but they were nothing to cheer about.

St. Pete Saturday Market. One aisle of four.

The final extra day also let us get in one last visit with Karen and Ben, who were driving home from a conference in Bradenton Saturday evening. We ended up at Taverna Costale, an Italian place, new to us, just a couple of blocks from the dock, simply because they had available spots on Open Table. It was actually very good.

Dinner with Karen and Ben at Taverna Costale. Photo: Ben Willmore

This morning we were ready to leave the dock before checkout time, but we delayed for a bit while the gaggle of boats participating in the blessing of the fleet jockeyed around and left the marina for the blessing out near the St. Pete Pier. We proceeded directly to the pump-out dock across the basin at the municipal marina, and I had figured the blessing would be done by the time we left the basin. No such luck, and I had to skirt around it on our way out.

The blessing of the fleet. I left this official boat to port so I would not pass between them and their congregants and be a distraction. They still all turned to look at us.

Update: I was never able to finish yesterday, with just a couple of hours underway in open water, and we're now in Sarasota, anchored off Bird Key across from the Sarasota Yacht Club (map). We had the current against us all the way through Tampa Bay but still arrived a bit early for the Anna Maria Island drawbridge. Then we slow-rolled to the Cortez bridge, just 16 minutes away but also on a half-hourly schedule. By then it was 3pm and we just went another mile to a familiar anchorage near the Coast Guard station in Cortez (map).

Approaching the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. We do not use the main span and instead thread between the anti-ship caissons.

Cortez and Bradenton Beach were hit pretty hard by Milton, and the marina north of the bridge is pretty much destroyed, with sunken vessels still in place. We also noticed the anchorage south of the bridge on the west side, normally so full there's no room left, had just three boats, the rest, we presume, relocated by the storm.

Destroyed marina and lots of sunken boats on our way into Cortez.

At dinner time we splashed the tender and headed over to the Tide Tables restaurant on the Cortez side, which has a dock. I was looking forward to strolling Cortez after dinner, but the wait turned out to be over 40 minutes, with no shady place to wait. We decided to leave it for another day, waved off, and headed across to the Bradenton Beach side instead.

Long overdue project to refresh the dinghy numbers. Halfway through on this side.

The city courtesy docks were mostly destroyed, but there are two mostly usable slips and they were empty. We tied up and walked down to the Bridge Tender Inn, which we remembered fondly from a previous visit. It's a Packers bar (really), and last time we were there ahead of a Packers game, which made it a zoo. Thankfully, pro football season is over. My burger was excellent and Louise enjoyed her fish sandwich, and only draft beer was lacking. We strolled a bit of the town after dinner; lots of damage and many things are still closed. Several restaurants have reopened and the town is rebuilding.

Courtesy docks askew.

This morning I called the Sarasota Yacht Club, just a little over two hours away, to see if they had a slip for tonight, and they did. So we weighed anchor after the fog lifted and headed south, for an arrival a bit after noon. That put us here at max flood, with a full knot ripping through the marina and trying to push us into the slips, which fortunately are parallel to the flow. But with the heavy current and 15 knots of wind on the beam pushing us off-center, we waved off after three missed approaches. The slips are tight. Instead we came across the channel to this lovely anchorage.

One of many shuttered businesses in Bradenton Beach. The water came right through.

I was still working on photos here when we tendered over to the club, a little before the dockmaster left for the day, to grab a key card so we could walk down to St. Armand's Circle for dinner. The club itself is closed, as so many are on Monday. St. Armands is one of my favorite places on the west coast, and it was hit hard, with lots of vegetation missing from the causeway and many businesses still shuttered. We had a nice pizza at Venezia, which was packed. In the morning we will weigh anchor and continue south toward Boca Grande.

Finally on the West Coast

We are underway northbound in the Gulf of Mexico, just a mile or two off the coast, bound for Pass-a-Grille, just north of the Tampa Bay entrance. We are headed to Clearwater for a few days, to connect with good friends Karen and Ben before they go gallivanting off to various conferences and family visits.

Saturday morning we lingered a bit in Moore Haven, taking advantage of dock power for some welcome morning heat and topping up our water tank, before dropping lines to continue downbound on the Caloosahatchee. I had reached out to our friends Laura and Ben in Fort Myers to see if we could connect over dinner, and the earliest they were available was Monday, which gave us a leisurely transit of the river.

With some extra time on our hands, we set our sights on LaBelle for the evening, which meant we'd only have one lock, at Ortona, for the day. That proved an excellent strategy, as Louise was hit with a bout of allergies the likes of which neither of us had seen. It had started on Friday, but by the time we reached the Ortona Lock on Saturday she was barely functional, declaring she was not up to doing another lock.

Vector at anchor in LaBelle, as seen through the bridge. This is as close as we can get.

We dropped the hook upriver of the LaBelle drawbridge, off-channel just outside the cable area (map). It was not even 2pm. I used the downtime to fix a few things, and Louise crashed for a while, exhausted from all the sneezing. We were hoping it might pass by dinner time, but when that rolled around she was still miserable and did not even feel like eating.

I splashed the tender and headed ashore stag, swinging past the new LaBelle Yacht Club patio restaurant, which has a dock. The far-too-loud live music drove me away, and instead I landed at the town courtesy dock, eventually ending up at Forrey Grill, an Italian joint where I ate at the bar. I was prepared to bring something home for Louise but she still had no appetite.

Once back aboard and settling in to my evening video-watching routine, I noticed our Starlink had become glacially slow. I never figured out why, but I suspect it was related to them discontinuing our previous plan and forcing us on to a more expensive but lower-performance plan just in the last few days. Our AT&T hot spot was running ten times faster, so I just turned the Starlink off. When I turned it back on yesterday the speed was much better.

The LaBelle Yacht Club, new since our last visit. It looks nice but the music was loud.

Sunday morning Louise was just fine, almost as if the allergy thing had never happened, and we weighed anchor and continued downriver. The traffic was not bad in the morning but picked up throughout the day, and we had a 20-minute wait at the Franklin Lock. One of the downstream gates was inoperative, and the other was working at reduced speed.

As we approached Fort Myers we began to see damage from Hurricane Milton. Nothing nearly as severe as what we saw post-Ian, but still significant. We proceeded into the anchorage at dead slow, "clutch ahead," since we had no way of knowing if the storm had done anything to the unmarked channel, wherein we normally have just a foot below the keel. We made it in without incident and had the entire anchorage, normally full of long-term boats, all to ourselves (map).

No doubt Milton had a hand in that, but there are also no services here now whatsoever since Ian. No place to get water, or empty waste, or even to safely and conveniently land a dinghy. The two downtown marinas have been shuttered since Ian, and only a small section of exposed concrete-and-steel bulkhead is available to get ashore. That's where we landed the tender Sunday evening for dinner.

The bar at Forrey Grill, which was tucked in the back and not visible from the dining room, where there was a long wait. It's not as purple as it looks in this photo.

Tying up and disembarking even in the moderate chop from the south wind was a challenge, as was securing the dinghy so it would not be bashing hard parts into the bulkhead. As we were doing that, we realized it would be completely untenable Monday evening, when winds were forecast to be NW and there would likely be 2-3 footers bashing into this seawall.

We had a nice stroll around town, which is still vibrant as ever, and landed at long-time favorite Capone's for dinner. I texted Ben to let them know we'd have to wave off for Monday evening unless we could find a different place to land. Their Sunday plans had evaporated, and so they met us after dinner at Sip & Sizzle, a new steak-and-cocktails place, for drinks. We spent well over an hour nursing a couple of drinks and catching up; it's always great to see them.

My antipasto salad came with this plate of garlic knots. These two got saved for breakfast.

Monday morning we were pinned in the anchorage until the tide came up above zero from its low of -0.5'; we had arrived at +0.5' and had just over a foot under the keel. After lunch we weighed anchor, squeaked back out of the anchorage, and continued southwest in 30-35 knots of wind and a small-craft advisory. Vector has no trouble with this, and underway with the stabilizers working is more comfortable than bouncing at anchor, but this weather had what is often a nightmarish section of waterway blissfully devoid of other traffic.

That said, in the middle of the narrow and shallow section known as the Miserable Mile, we came face to face with a pair of small pusher tugs, each with a barge on the head, and hundreds of feet of dredge pipe strung between them. They were struggling in the wind, and as a result, taking the whole channel. They never answered the radio on any channel, nor did they respond to my whistle signals, and I ended up dredging the mud at the edge of the channel avoiding them. Sadly, there are never any consequences for this sort of behavior unless there is a collision -- we missed by mere feet.

Passing two tugs with dredge pipe very close aboard.

The high winds were supposed to clock around to the NW by evening, and so we tucked up in the corner of Pine Island Sound, just off the south end of Pine Island, a familiar stop, and dropped the hook (map) as close to shore as we could get. The winds stayed westerly, and stiff, the whole night, so it was not the best choice. Even so, we braved the waves by splashing the tender and heading ashore to the Waterfront Restaurant in St. James City for dinner, which was good. They have 16 dock-and-dine slips, but we were the only boat.

Tuesday I had figured to weigh anchor first thing and continue north past Cabbage Key and Boca Grande, all the way to Englewood or maybe even Venice. Louise-the-weather-router pointed out, however, that if we waited a day, we would have a perfect two-day window to go all the way to Clearwater in the gulf. That would bypass the perennially shallow stretch south of Venice, a few timed drawbridges, and whatever unknown challenges might still exist from Milton.

We're the only nut jobs arriving by boat.

We made it a short day and stopped at long-time favorite Cabbage Key (map), where we tendered ashore for dinner at the inn. This place is packed to the gills at lunch, the inspiration for Jimmy Buffet's Cheeseburger in Paradise, but it's downright quiet at dinner time, and we've been coming here for a decade. They weathered both Ian and Milton, and sometimes it feels like they could last forever, with many of the structures now 75 years old.

Yesterday we weighed anchor and headed toward Boca Grande, where we expected to anchor for an easy exit at dawn this morning for an all-day run to Eggmont Key in Tampa Bay. But by the time we were passing the tip of Cayo Costa, gulf conditions let us just continue out the inlet and make a day run to Venice. I called the yacht club there to be sure they had room for us, as there is no place for us to anchor in Venice.

This sign on the rest room made me chuckle.

After passing the tip of Gasparilla Island we made the hard right into the unmarked "swash channel" leading north from the inlet. We've used this channel before, but we were nervous enough about what Milton might have done (hurricanes often move, close, or open these sorts of channels) that I called TowBoatUS for a report, and also solicited reports online from folks who had been through since the storm. We found no less than 11' in the swash channel.

It was not flat calm yesterday, so we had a bit of a bouncy, but tolerable, ride. We arrived to the Venice Yacht Club right around 4, and had to wait a short while to get to the fuel dock, where we took on a bit of fuel and pumped out our tanks. We normally do that at sea, but here on the west coast it is required to go out beyond nine miles, adding 3-4 miles to our trip. I was expecting the fuel to be cheaper than it was, so we only added 100 gallons, instead of the 700 I had planned. We used a bunch more fuel coming the long way around, and this will tide us over until we are back on the east coast.

Vector at anchor in Pine Island Sound, as seen from St. James City.

We could have stayed right there on the fuel dock, but that would have us backing out through the mud at low tide this morning, so after pumping out we moved around to the T-head and tied up for the night (map). We had a nice dinner at the outdoor tiki bar adjacent to the pool, but we were glad to learn that Wednesday is Pasta Night in the dining room, which smelled great. After dinner we had a nice walk, but we had to turn around at The Crow's Nest because the jetty and its park are closed and fenced off, the aftermath of Milton. We saw many buildings still being remediated from being inundated by storm surge. We returned to the bar for dessert after our walk, but had missed the last slice of bananas Foster cheesecake by mere minutes.

This morning we dropped lines just before 9am and slipped back out the inlet. Seas have been getting progressively calmer throughout the day, and the plotter has us arriving to the anchorage by 4pm. Had we left from Boca Grande we would have had to anchor in Tampa Bay, but our departure from Venice is letting us get all the way to a more protected anchorage inside the Pass-a-Grille inlet.

Tomorrow we will have a short day in the gulf to Clearwater. We've usually anchored there, where the city has a free day dock, borrowing a car from our friends. This time, however, we've booked a dock, to make things a bit easier and also so we can land the scooters, as Louise is looking forward to some more time on her new steed. We'll be in Clearwater until the 20th, and you won't hear from me again until we are on our way back south.

West Coast: Second attempt.

We are under way westbound across Lake Okeechobee, headed for the west coast for as long as the lake level allows -- we've come an extra 280 nautical miles by this route, and we don't want to repeat that in the other direction. The lake is quite calm, and we are having a good crossing, waving at all the Great Loopers going the other way.

Vector anchored off the Key Biscayne Yacht Club. The sunsets from the club patio are legendary.

After we made the eastbound turn into Hawk Channel just off Marathon last Friday, we found ourselves in sea conditions that would let us anchor just south of any of the larger keys. We pushed all the way to Long Key and tucked in as close as we could to the beach (map), a new spot for us. The water here is so clear we could easily see the bottom, and watch the anchor set in the clear sand.

We favored the west end of the beach, which let us splash the tender and run the mile around the west end of the key to Lick It BBQ & Wood Fired Pizza, basically a Cuban food truck next to a tiki pavilion at the Edgewater Lodge. The food was quite good and they even had bottled beer, which was a nice end to an otherwise difficult day. After dinner we had a nice walk around the property and out to the historic Long Key Viaduct, the former Overseas Railroad bridge that is now a pedestrian and bike trail.

Cubano dinner under the tiki at the Edgewater Lodge.

Saturday was another fairly calm day on the Hawk Channel, and while there was weekend traffic, it's nothing like the hustle and bustle of the ICW through Miami. We had an easy day all the way to the Cape Florida Channel, bypassing a stop at Rodriguez Key for our first time ever. We had planned to anchor off No Name Harbor and maybe tender in to the Boater's Grill there, but arriving so close to sunset we reasoned they'd be packed on a Saturday night, and we opted to just stay aboard.

That let us continue around the corner to a familiar anchorage off the old Nixon helipad (map), which we knew would have less ocean swell and fewer sportfish wakes than No Name. That turned out to be a mistake; on a nice Saturday night, the anchorage was full of party boats, both private and charter, blasting loud music well into the wee hours of the morning.

Vector looking diminutive from the Long Key Viaduct.

We knew we did not want to slog through Miami on the ICW in weekend traffic, and we did not have the weather to run outside, which was why we pushed all the way to Cape Florida on Saturday in the first place. So Sunday morning I called the Key Biscayne Yacht Club, a stone's throw away, to see if they could fit us in for one night. They could not, so instead we arranged to come in by tender to dine.

With the anchorage now mostly empty, we weighed anchor and moved north, as close to the yacht club as we could get (map), in hopes it would be just a bit quieter further from the main party area. In the afternoon Esmeralde flew by us, waving from about a mile off, on their way to an outside run to Fort Lauderdale via Government Cut. I worked on Louise's new scooter for the afternoon, and at dinner time we splashed the tender and headed ashore to the Chart Room at the club for a nice dinner. Afterward we walked to the nearby 7-11 for milk, which we needed before the morning. We had a much quieter and calmer night.

A distant shot of Esmeralde whizzing by on plane.

I spent a considerable amount of time Sunday with the bridge schedules, working out a plan to minimize station-keeping. We weighed anchor Monday morning to arrive at the Venetian Causeway, about an hour away, right at the dot of 9:30, and we had a good run with no serious waiting all the way to Fort Lauderdale. We arrived at high tide in the early afternoon, and decided to see if we could find a spot in Lake Sylvia to anchor.

Sunset from the tender heading home from Long Key. People line the beach and the viaduct to see this

We need tidal help to get in here, and we seldom arrive at the right tide and early enough in the day to monkey around. We're glad we did this time, because now we have a good track, but there was no room for us inside, so we turned right around and headed up to our old standby, Sunrise Bay (map). We would have instead stopped at the yacht club right next door, except they are closed on Monday and they had no way for us to get out and back in the front gate to leave the property.

At dinner time we splashed the tender and ran the couple of miles south to Bahia Mar, to meet up with Dorsey and Bruce on Esmeralde, notwithstanding having already said our tearful goodbyes for the season down in Key West. We were greeted by terriers Maisie and Ollie, fresh from the groomer and looking and smelling great. Bruce and Dorsey had a rental car and we all piled in and went to Serafina for dinner, a first for them. Ironically, we passed right by Vector coming and going.

Poorly aimed and focused shot of Dorsey, Bruce, me, and Louise at Serafina. Bruce is showing off his profiteroles.

They were kind enough to swing us by the grocery store on the way back, and after taking our leave we tendered over to Coconuts to pick up our requisite slice of coconut cheesecake to go, for the following night. We had a fast ride home in flat calm but a light drizzle.

I had once again hammered out the bridge schedules, and Tuesday morning we weighed anchor for perfect timing, with minimal waiting, for an exactly seven-hour cruise to our usual spot in West Palm Beach. Things were going swimmingly and we were right on track, but halfway through the morning we learned that set-up had already started for the Palm Beach Boat Show. Rats; that would mean most of the anchorage would be closed, with all the usual denizens scrambling for other spots nearby, and the dinghy docks were closed.

Sunrise over Hawk Channel as we got underway from Long Key.

Normally this would not be an issue for us, and we'd just continue another hour to an anchorage closer to the inlet. However, not really thinking about the boat show that always happens around now, we had both placed Amazon orders to the locker just south of town. We needed an alternate plan, and we spent over an hour underway working on it, no small feat while also driving the gantlet of bridges.

We finally settled on stopping short, at an anchorage I've been meaning to try anyway, in Lantana, just south of the bridge of that name. There is a free dinghy dock nearby, a number of restaurants, a Walgreens, and it's even just a two-mile walk or bike ride to Costco. Google said it was a 40-minute trip to the locker on the county bus, or we could drop a lunch hook in the morning across from the El Cid dock and tender over to get our packages.

Sunset from Key Biscayne Yacht Club with Vector and her first mate.

That took the pressure off to make a tight bridge opening at the Lantana bridge, and I dialed it back at Boynton Inlet, where the channel has shoaled. We had the hook down in light rain just south of the cable area in Lantana (map) just after 1 pm, calling it an early day. The anchorage was crowded, with some boats likely relocated from West Palm for the easy dinghy dock and a bus ride to work. We waited out the rain aboard.

By dinner time it was mostly dry and we tendered ashore for dinner. Not wanting to venture far, in case the rain started back up, we went to the nearby Old Key Lime House, which is a typical waterfront tiki joint, where all the seating is open-air but mostly covered, and they have live music on the deck. The food was OK but I suspect there are better options in the neighborhood.

Dinner at Old Key Lime House. Note the pair of upright masts just over Louise's shoulder, at right.

At one point early in the meal I looked up from the table and saw a large sailboat aground in the anchorage, leaned over by nearly 45° with its gunwale in the water. I could have sworn it was afloat and upright on our way to the restaurant, and sure enough they had literally just grounded, swung into a shoal by a sudden gust of wind. The crew was scrambling about, and a couple of dinghies came by to offer help. The entire restaurant staff filed out over time to have a look.

I snapped this picture less than ten minutes later. That same pair of masts, no longer upright.

Before dinner we had received two out of four delivery notices and were hoping the last two would come in while we ate, but no such luck. We were already home when the last came in, or so I thought, and I tendered back ashore stag to go get them. I missed a bus by mere seconds, watching it go by as I came up to the stop; it turned out to be the previous bus, considerably delayed. The next bus was already a half hour late, according to the tracker, and I would have a 40-minute wait in the rain for a half hour bus ride. I called an Uber.

Arriving at the locker I found only three of the four deliveries; evidently I only imagined the final notice. I walked across the street to the Publix and dollar store for a few items and the last notice came in while I was shopping. I was able to grab the bus back to Lantana, not an unpleasant ride at all. It was a long evening, but we got everything and would not need to horse around in the morning trying to land ashore in West Palm.

Miami skyline at night, from the Nixon anchorage, Key Biscayne.

In the morning we weighed anchor for the 8 am opening at Lantana, setting us up for good timing through the morning lockdowns in the Palm Beaches. The show buildout was in full swing, but it turned out that "our spot" in the anchorage would still have been available, just without shore access. We had a very slow roll north of Flagler bridge in order to time the Parker bridge, the first time we ever got that timing correct.

The timing put us at the tricky Jupiter Inlet crossing at a high tide of 2.5', and we needed it, as our sounder dipped below 8' at one point. Until they dredge this again we will continue to need tidal help here. The new Jupiter Federal Bridge is now in operation, but this new one is high enough we no longer need it to open for us.

The new Jupiter Federal Bridge, still under construction. We go right under it.

The early start got us all the way to Stuart, where we dropped the hook just east of Arbeau Point (map) for protection from westerlies. It's an easy tender ride to shore from here, but heavy rain kept us aboard for dinner. At least the boat got a good rinse. Instead we went ashore in the morning, as we were completely out of beer, and could use a few more items from Publix as well. We stopped in to Three Little Birds Cafe for breakfast, complete with a mimosa.

We decked the tender as soon as we returned and weighed anchor on a rising tide for the run to the lake. We were delighted to have a different and much more pleasant lockmaster at the St. Lucie Lock than on previous transits. Late start notwithstanding we made it all the way to the lake, albeit after the locks closed for the day, and we spent the night tied to the Port Mayaca dolphins (map). We arrived in 15-20 knots of wind, which made lassoing the pilings without hitting them with the boat a challenge, but the boatswain was up to the challenge and we landed the boat without incident.

Sunset from the Nixon anchorage, Key Biscayne.

Once tied to the dolphins, the lines were creaking horribly in the strong wind. It did not help that they were stiff from the last dock. Realizing it was going to be a challenge sleeping with all that racket, I went in search of a solution, and we've learned a new trick: dish soap in warm water, poured directly over the cleat knot and the touch points with the hawsepipes, quieted the lines right down. The YouTube clip wherein I learned this claims the solution works for a good 6-8 hours. By the time I turned in, the wind had dropped to just 2 knots, rendering it moot.

We had a relaxing evening on board, at least right up until shower time. Louise marched upstairs after her shower and started the generator, even though we had full batteries, announcing that she had a mostly cold shower. Apparently we once again have an air bubble trapped in our water heater coolant loop, likely the result of my having changed the pump and coolant in Marathon. Odd that it all worked for a good week after leaving Key West, but sometimes entrained air takes a while to find the high spot in the system.

Transiting Port Mayaca Lock this morning. At this lake level they open both sides and we drive right through.

Update: we are tied to the city dock in Moore Haven, Florida (map), a familiar stop. I had to stop typing a few miles east of Clewiston to drive through some skinny stuff, and then we were in narrow canals the rest of the day requiring steady focus. Once tied up we had to deal with various dockside errands, and then we walked down to Joey's Pizza & Subs for dinner, alas sans beer. Moore Haven, which auto-complete keeps wanting to finish, appropriately, as Moore Haven't, is a culinary wasteland, with nothing but a pizza joint and a taco stand.

I now have a very nice oatmeal stout in hand, courtesy of our Publix stop yesterday, as I wrap up the blog. In the morning we will drop lines and continue toward Fort Myers, stopping somewhere along the Caloosahatchee for the night.

Defeated

We've had a change of plans, and as I begin typing we are underway southbound toward the Moser Channel under the Seven Mile Bridge, near Marathon. We had a miserable night and are both dog-tired, but we've been trading places to nap underway.

While we had a comfortable cruise yesterday, and we were fairly comfortable at anchor through dinner, with just a light chop, the forecast for light winds, less than five knots, overnight proved to be entirely wrong. Winds steadily picked up, and by the time I turned it it was blowing 15-20, and we were pounding over 2-3' seas at anchor; I had to run around the boat at midnight dogging things down as if for sea. We were still probably having a better night than the sailboat that arrived after dark and anchored just west of us, with likely less than a third our displacement.

In the dark, in heavy seas, and less than high tide, it was too late to change our decision and seek the shelter of the Little Shark River, and we had no choice but to tough it out. That kind of motion does not bother me or keep me from sleeping, but what did was anxiety -- the morning tide would be below zero, and with just 18" under the keel in that spot, I was worried we'd be slamming against the bottom. Fortunately, the winds dropped off, but not completely, before dawn.

With the tide at just three inches and falling, we weighed anchor just before civil twilight this morning to get back out to deeper water before it dropped another full foot. Once back in 8' soundings we made the turn northward to Marco Island, thankful to have the stabilizers working and making us at least a little comfortable.

Within the span of an hour we found ourselves bashing into 2'-3' head seas, with 15-20 knots of wind on the nose. There were whitecaps, and we were taking spray over the bow all the way to the pilothouse windows. This was definitely not the forecast, which was for light winds to five knots and seas of just one foot. Louise spent half of that hour combing through forecasts for any inkling of what was happening, but none was accurate.

While a little uncomfortable, we could have soldiered through those conditions all day. But we still had nine full hours to Marco Island, with no heavy-weather bail-out options in between. With the forecast completely wrong, we had no way to know whether the conditions would stay the same throughout those nine hours, or deteriorate further into something truly uncomfortable or which would make the shallow entrance at Marco Island, near sunset, a problem. If we continued much further, we'd be committed, too late to turn around and make safe harbor in the daylight.

The great U-turn.

We conceded defeat to the vagaries of mother nature and the inaccuracies of a forecast in a remote part of the state, and made a U-turn. As soon as I finished the turn, life got vastly better, because wind and seas that had been on the nose were now on the stern. The boat stopped pitching and bashing, and there was no more spray. It was just 7:30am.

It's now nearly 3pm and we've passed under the Seven Mile Bridge and made the eastward turn into the Hawk Channel. (Typing in these conditions is a slow process, interrupted by dodging pot floats and looking at charts to figure out just what we are doing). Conditions improved throughout the day, and it was downright pleasant for the last couple of hours before the bridge. We've both had naps.

We are now under the gun to make it into Biscayne Bay before the next system moves in. If we had stopped in Marathon we'd be pinned there for a week, so we're going to press on up the Keys until we run out of day, and tuck in someplace to anchor. Tomorrow we'll get an early start, and we should be in Key Biscayne early on Sunday.

We'd already started making plans to connect with friends on the west coast, and those will have to be rearranged. I still want to get there, and we'll have to decide whether to cross the lake to do it, or drop the boat someplace, rent a car, and make a week's road trip out of it. Even with the ~450-mile round trip in the boat, taking the boat is cheaper, but convenience and logistics will likely drive the decision. Stay tuned. It's at least five days before we even reach the fork in the road, at St. Lucie Inlet.