Leaving Key West

We are underway eastbound in the Hawk Channel, our first real movement since my last post here five weeks ago. Key West is receding behind us and we have our sights set on the back side of Marathon for tonight. Seas are more than we'd like, but we are on a schedule, and they are forecast to get better throughout the day.

Dorsey snapped this photo of me backing in from her marina. It's deceiving; the blue-hulled boat to our starboard is actually two slips over; our actual neighbor is just visible behind our mast. There was just one fender-width between us and the boat to our port, but I'm not back that far yet. Dockhands are waiting to take our stern lines. Photo: Dorsey Beard

We arrived to Key West on the morning of February 4th, expecting to spend a night in the anchorage before our reservation started on the 5th. But a forecast for very high winds all day on the 5th had me calling the marina to see if they could take us a day early, so we could be tied up before the winds hit. Normally we do not like to be docking on the same day we complete an overnight passage.

The hokey arrangement to run the dishwasher while the hot water was disconnected.

We got lucky; the marina was able to take us, and they even gave us the better monthly rate for the early night. We dropped a day hook in the lee of Tank Island, AKA Sunset Key to wait for the slip to be available and to get in a nap after the overnight. In the afternoon we weighed anchor and proceeded to the fuel dock to offload the scooters, as we had arranged on the phone when we booked.

The tempering valve inlet screens were pretty clogged. Hot water flow is better now.

The marina manager met us at the dock, evidently very nervous about the process. He insisted on taking the tag lines himself as I lowered each scooter from the deck, an odd choice since we do it all the time and he's never done it. We held our breath when he decided to spin each scooter around before it landed, a maneuver much more likely to make it hit the boat. We got them landed without incident and left them on the fuel dock while we pulled around to our slip.

This is a new one on me. There is also a sign forbidding electric vehicles from parking in the garage; they must be in the outdoor lot. Galleon Resort.

Coming in with lighter winds was definitely the right choice. I was able to easily glide back between the yachts on either side of us, and then we spent a good five minutes or more with me still at the controls while Louise got two sets of lines on each of the two pilings off our foredeck. It's a fiddly tie-up and, of course, your lines end up on top of the ones from the boats to either side. After we were secured (map) the dockhands did crowd control on the boardwalk while I got the scooters off the dock and into the parking lot.

Our choice to come in a day early and avoid the wind was validated when this Beneteau ended up pinned against the pulpit of a boat down the dock from us. It went right through the very expensive glass side of the Beneteau's salon, and it took two towboats to get him off and over to his slip at The Galleon without further damage.

The new water heater arrived the next day, and just in the nick of time. Nevertheless we got the code for the marina showers and laundry, just in case. And thus it was that we were all settled in to the most expensive marina in Key West for a full month. The place does not even have a pool, but it was what we could get on short notice. We also heard every single note of the live music from Schooner Wharf across the basin, which fortunately stopped each night at 11pm.

"Well, there's your problem." One very obvious leak, and a couple of smaller pinholes as well.

Our good friends Dorsey and Bruce aboard Esmeralde were already in town when we arrived, staying across from us at The Galleon, and our other good friends Erin and Chris aboard Barefeet arrived on the 17th to the city marina around the corner. So we had a rather full social calendar to occupy us for our entire visit. It was great to get to spend so much time with all of them.

American Cruise Lines has started bringing their pocket cruise ships to Key West. They look like Dinky Toys next to the big girls.

As always, projects of various kinds took up quite a bit of time as well. The largest of these was also the first and the most urgent, which was to get the old leaking water heater out and the new one in its place. While I had it out I was able to clean out a lot of calcium deposits from the tempering valve, which has improved our hot water flow. Of course I again had to touch up the paint on the mounting tray between getting the old one out and the new one in. I had it all working, at least on the electric element, by the end of the second day, in enough time for the water to be hot for showers that evening.

The bottom of the new water heater, as received. I sent this photo to Amazon.

The water heater had arrived quite seriously banged up, and I had to spend a full hour with a mallet, a pry bar, wood blocks, and Vise-Grips bending the four mounting feet back into a usable condition. There was no way I was going to send it back and wait another full week for a replacement. I complained to Amazon, hoping for maybe a hundred bucks or so credit for my time and effort, but instead they just refunded me the entire $600 price.

An hour or so of careful bending and hammering and it's "good enough" to bolt down. I used the flat jaws of this portable vise to straighten and bend the mounting ears.

Having a "free" water heater made it much less fraught when I cut a 2½" hole into the outer case to install the temperature sensor for our new monitoring system, and also when I drilled four screws into the case to mount the new expansion tank for the next phase of the project. After getting the new unit working, I took some time to tear down the old one to see what the leak looked like, and also to cut into it to see just how high the heat exchanger loop extends into the tank.

I had to cut this large hole to fit the Ruuvi wireless temperature sensor. The string is in case it starts to slide off the top of the tank. Against the tank, inside the insulation, gives us a better reading than anywhere on the outside.

Replacing the water heater obviated the immediate need for this next project, but I had already bought the parts, and it would make life easier in the long run. I installed a flat-plate heat exchanger between the engine and the water heater, so that the engine loop no longer runs higher than the engine expansion tank. A small electric pump and a separate expansion tank complete the now separate loop to bring that heat to the water heater. Now any leaks in the water heater loop will not affect the engine, and the water heater will not lose prime, a problem we previously dealt with at every coolant change.

New flat plate heat exchanger. Quarter for scale.

Shown here with pipe couplers and hose adapters fitted.

The first set of couplers from Amazon had straight threads (really) and had to go back.

I had been noodling on how to insulate the heat exchanger, but it came packed in this foam with the holes already cut. I just put it back in the foam after I installed the connectors.

The whole project, and including reconnecting the dishwasher to its normal plumbing after I had to bypass it while the hot water was off, ate up a couple weeks of our stay. Other projects over the month included replacing the drive belt on the washing machine, remediating rust and touching up paint on the aft deck and the swim step (including using some local beach sand as non-skid, since I had no Grip-Tex), replacing the roller weights and drive belt on my scooter, adding a seat belt for my scooter mascot, repairing the sewing machine, replacing Louise's swiveling tray table, modifying an LED bulb to fit a map light at the helm, and moving our communicators from our old scooter helmets to a pair of new ones we bought while here. I also made up a pair of floodlights with magnetic bases to put up on the bow for seeing the pot floats at night. And just to watch the Superbowl (for the ads, of course) I ended up having to do surgery on the TV remote.

I thoroughly washed and dried some sand from Simonton Beach and sprinkled it in my repair with a sifter.

My mascot, Bruce Lee, finally astride our steed after sitting forlornly for a year awaiting installation of footmen loops for his seatbelt.

Old roller weights with obvious "flat spots." Bruce, who used to own a Vespa dealership, knew this would be the problem right away when I told him my clutch was "grabbing."

Strolling the dock at the A&B marina daily and looking at all the aft decks inspired Louise to order materials for a new system to partly screen our own aft deck to make it more usable on sunny days. Thus a new project was born, and she spent hours sewing Textilene fabric into the proper shapes and edging it with a bead that fits into a track. For my part I had to cut the track and modify it to fit the existing bolt holes for the overhead panels so we would not have to drill new holes. We ended up with five separate tracks and three different covers that move among them. It looks and works great and we're glad we got to see this same system installed on several nearby boats.

A test section of track showing how my step drill bit made the screw pockets.

Finished result with existing screw fitted. There is just enough plastic left to get a grip.

The end result. They make a lot of shade. It was very windy when I snapped this, and they are bowed inwards.

I had just enough time before we left to tackle one more big project, which was to recommission the watermaker This has been shut down completely since it failed completely shortly after our last trip to the Bahamas, where it struggled right to the end. I had purchased a new membrane and end cap for it, and I really needed to get those installed and the system running before we arrive in Fort Lauderdale, where the dealer is located that can help me if there are any issues.

The male fitting on this expansion tank also had straight threads. I cut it off and tapped ⅜ female threads for a proper fitting. I had to order the tap.

Expansion tank in the finished system; I had to make do with the weird mounting holes and use an angle bracket to take the weight. Tiny centrifugal pump at lower left circulates the coolant for this side of the system. Hole for the temp sensor now has a plastic cover on it.

I spent two days getting the system flushed out, the new membrane in place and flushed, and all the inevitable little leaks resolved. It appears I have two bad pressure sensors, which will have to be replaced in Fort Lauderdale, but once those were bypassed it ran fine and made the rated amount of water for an hour. I'm hoping to have the dealer come aboard and just give it a once-over while we are in town.

The one and only Kermit, outside Kermit's Key Lime Pies. He sold the business years ago, but apparently the new owners pay him to don his chef's uniform and hawk pies outside the shop. Yes, his name really is Kermit. We saw him several times on this visit.

We have now spent enough time in Key West over the years that we no longer feel the need to be tourists here. There are no attractions we have not seen, and the tourist are mostly a source of amusement now. So the scooters got used mostly for errands, including multiple runs to Home Depot and Publix. I did circumnavigate the island a couple of times just to see if anything was different; it seems you can no longer drive right past the Southernmost Point monument and now pass a block away. We also Ubered out to Stock Island one afternoon with Bruce and Dorsey to eat at long-time favorite Roostica.

Vector nestled in at A&B Marina, as seen from The Galleon.

I walked 2-3 miles most days, making a sort of star pattern from the marinas. I mostly stayed off Duval, which is too crowded to walk at a healthy pace. Occasionally I would meet up with Dorsey and Bruce while they were walking their adorable Scotties, Ollie and Maisie. The dogs know where every dog treat in town is located, and have also convinced a number of restaurateurs to give them bacon when they arrive.

How it looks from the dock. We have a couple of fenders to keep the swim step from hitting the dock, and we board by stepping across. I used a ratchet strap to hold the doormat down. This shows you how close we really are to the neighbors.

On the dining front, either just the two of us or with friends, we hit all the usual joints and some new ones, including Amigos, Bruschetta Francesca, The Celtic Conch, Onlywood (two locations), Alonzo's, La Trattoria (Old Towne), Cuban Coffee Queen, Island Dogs, First Flight, The Boathouse, Miso Happy, Pepe's, A&B Lobster House, Half Shell Raw Bar, Brady's, Conch Republic Seafood Company, Fogarty's, Waterfront Brewery, Southernmost Pint, Roostica, Old Towne Tavern, Mangia Mangia, Eaton Street Seafood, Pirates Cove, Fisherman's Cafe, Lolita's, and Harpoon Harry's.

With Erin and Chris at Mangia Mangia. You still have to show up early and wait in line before they even open to get a table.

We were disappointed by Bruschetta Francesca, which used to be a go-to for us. they have raised their prices and the quality has dropped. La Trattoria is a better choice. Conch Republic did not please either of us. We walked out of Two Friends Patio altogether after they ignored us for ten minutes after seating us. Fisherman's Cafe used to have a good breakfast sandwich but now they are off the list. And we were amused to find that we were at A&B exactly 20 years to the day after our previous visit there, when we were here in the bus. It's still good and still expensive, and this time we enjoyed it in the company of friends.

Cheers, from the Southernmost Pint. We gave them another try after panning them when they opened. They now have more beers that I like (I even went back and got a growler) and the finger foods were fine.

We had cocktails at Tattoos & Scars, and I joined Chris one morning for a donut over at Glazed Donuts. We dined aboard Barefeet on homemade pizza and also a nice pork loin, and we had homemade coconut cream pie aboard Esmeralde (with an extra slice to go). We joined Erin and Chris for decadent desserts at Better Than Sex, which was not, really, but the menu and wait staff are full of innuendo. We ate aboard a couple of times, including one evening where we fixed brisket hot dogs gifted us by Bruce and Dorsey. Overall we ate and drank more than we should have.

Brisket hot dogs, courtesy of Bruce and Dorsey. They were delicious.

One afternoon we attended a cocktail hour meet-up of the denizens of the Trawler Life Facebook group, and we enjoyed meeting too many people to list (or remember, honestly; I wish I had taken notes). I also met fellow captain John Easley in person for the first time walking the docks at A&B; he was running one of the large yachts sharing our dock.

Louise ordered this Athletic NA beer, one of her favs, at First Flight, and they served it by cutting the lid off the can.

Early on I spent a bunch of time making phone calls to book some yard work in Fort Lauderdale on the 20th-23rd of this month, and also a haulout for an insurance survey on the 13th based on the surveyor's availability (giving us a week in between for other things). That seemed like a good buffer from the end of our marina reservation on the 5th, but as that date grew closer, the weather out here in the Hawk Channel became uncooperative.

I had to borrow Bruce's ½" electric impact wrench to get the variator off my scooter, so I would not have to cart my whole air compressor to the parking lot. Right afterward I ordered this ½" impact that runs on the same batteries we already use.

Lake Okeechobee is now too shallow for us to go up the west side and around, even though we were willing to do the extra miles. That left us no choice but to wait in Key West, watch the weather, and cross our fingers. A&B Marina could extend us to the 8th, but they wanted the day rate rather than what we had paid for the month. So on the 5th we dropped lines and moved over to the municipal Key West Bight Marina (map), which could also fit us until the 8th. This marina has finger piers so we did not have to pull around to the fuel dock again to load the scooters. That also made docking in the 20+ knots of crosswind less nerve-wracking.

Fishing vessel Miss Key West was festively lit while she was in port.

It was beginning to look like we would have to wave off our haulout on the 13th altogether, with only a marginal window on the 12th and nothing before it, but today's forecast improved to marginally acceptable at the last minute. So yesterday we loaded the scooters, dropped lines, and moved out to Man Of War Harbor, where we dropped the hook in the anchorage (map). We tendered back ashore for one final dinner with Dorsey and Bruce, tying up to Esmeralde's swim step. We swung by Barefeet on our way home for a final goodbye with Erin and Chris.

Erin caught us loading the scooters. Photo: Erin Miller

I was very happy to see our new solar producing between 1,000 and 1,100 watts (out of a rated 1,180) once we moved to the anchorage, and with the batteries already full, the solar ran our air conditioning all afternoon. And today's passage is our first test of the new heat exchanger system, which also seems to be working fine.

And Dorsey caught us slipping out of the Bight headed for the anchorage. Photo: Dorsey Beard

It's too lumpy out here to anchor on the ocean side tonight, and tomorrow is not a good day for the Hawk Channel. So we will proceed to the bay side by way of the Seven Mile Bridge this afternoon and anchor off the back side of Marathon, and tomorrow we will see just how far we can get up the back side, unless the forecast for Hawk improves. I think Channel 5 is a sure bet, and we might make it to Indian Key Channel. Then it is again a matter of waiting for good conditions in the Hawk Channel to make the final leg to Miami.

Dorsey catches all my Securité calls on the radio and snapped this photo as we were leaving this morning. Photo: Dorsey Beard

Update: We are anchored in a new spot for us, just north of the west end of Knight Key in Marathon (map). I had to stop typing when we came under the bridge and headed off into new, and shallow, territory. Based on the depths we are seeing I think it unlikely we will be able to continue on the back side and will most likely have to backtrack to the bridge whenever we get another window for Hawk Channel.

Key West bound

We are underway southbound in the Gulf of Mexico. on an overnight direct to Key West. There is not a lot to update since my last post, but this is the last big block of time until we are done in Key West and back underway, more than a month hence.

Tonight's moonrise over Marco Island from about five miles out.

Saturday we ate at the yacht club bar, which I have learned is called The Cove, on a cold and blustery night. The wind was so strong the door to the bar was moaning, and the sailboat masts were swinging wildly. We had briefly talked about walking the quarter mile to the beach to see if we could get a look at the ten foot waves that were forecast, but it was too cold and windy even for that and we just hunkered down in the boat with the heaters on.

When I was ready to hit the hay sometime around 1am I checked the depth sounder, just to make sure it was not going to go into alarm overnight, and I was somewhat shocked to see it reading just 8'. We were still at a tide of +1.2', and it would go down to -0.8' in the wee hours, meaning not only would the alarm be screaming, but also we would be grazing the bottom. That has never happened to us here. I changed the settings to prevent an alarm and headed to bed.

We have never seen this "island" in Venice in the decade we've been coming here.

Louise, who was already well into her sleep cycle when I discovered that the wind had driven all the water out of the lagoon, thus woke to something of a surprise in the morning, with the lines tight and all the boarding gates below the level of the fixed docks.We were planning on a leisurely start anyway, but a check of the tide table and our eyeballs on the actual water level told us we could not even get out of Venice until afternoon.

I explained our situation to the dockmaster, and fortunately no one was scheduled to come into our slip until the following day. He had no problem with us staying until after noon. With that settled, we strolled back to the clubhouse when they opened for Sunday brunch at 10. It's an a-la-carte menu that would be more appropriately called "breakfast" (lunch items are served after 11:30), but we had brunchy cocktails anyway.

Brunch at VYC. As visitors they put a tiny version of our home club's burgee on our table.

We finally dropped lines at 12:40 with the tide at +0.9', the highest it would get until after dark, in case we needed the 1pm opening at the Hatchett Creek bridge. We had to take the deeper channel back toward the inlet to even get out of the club, and with the water so low, we cleared the bridge with room to spare without an opening.

I had to set my chart offset to -1' below Mean Lower Low Water to have nearly accurate soundings, meaning nearly two full feet of water disappeared from the gulf overnight. We try never to hit Venice at low tide, and yet here we were. We skated over the shallow parts with inches under the keel but made it all the way through the land cut without incident.

Another island we've never seen before.

We were both starting to breathe again when we promptly ran aground in a known trouble spot where, even with this water level, the chart and survey said we should have at least a foot under us. 55 tons moving at five knots is a lot of momentum, and that carried us right over it, but we heard and felt the keel hit three times before we were out of it.

With such a late start, we only had really two options for stopping for the night. One was a tight but familiar anchorage in Englewood with a shallow bar across the entrance. And the other was a series of three spots off-channel in Cape Haze, a little further along but on the other side of a gantlet of shallow spots surveyed at just over 6'.

Sanibel light, on the southern tip of the island just before the pass.

Just as well that it would be a short day, because I could not let Otto drive at all, steering either by hand or on heading mode the entire day. When we got to Englewood I had an uneasy feeling about trying to cross the bar, and we pressed on to Cape Haze. Before we even got there we heard another scrape on the keel, but the sounder was reading 7' and we surmised it was a wayward crab pot in the middle of the channel.

I was hoping to just graze the bottom in the shallow stretch, but no such luck We plowed through the sand for close to fifty yards, modulating the throttle and using maybe a third of our 370 horses to push through. We got all the barnacles off the keel but did not end up having dinner mid-channel while we waited for more tide at 7pm, though that had been a distinct possibility. Fortunately we had seen exactly zero other boats the whole day; we were the only crazies out there, which we joked about with one of the bridge tenders. He saluted our courage.

Vector steaming up Matanzas Pass into Ft. Myers Beach. Photo: Erin Miller

We arrived to Cape Haze right around 4pm. We've previously anchored in the "lollipop" toward the east end, but we were mindful that the last time we stayed there, we picked up so many weeds we had to have a diver clear our sea chest. At least, that's where we think we picked them up. With such low water, we'd be in even more weeds this time, and we would once again be running both the generator and the heaters, drawing a lot of water into the system. This time we checked out the smaller anchorage at the west end of the same island.

We dropped the hook, but immediately determined that this spot, too, was weedy and shallow, and so instead we moved to an even smaller indentation along the south of the island and dropped the hook in 13' (map).  That, we figured, would have our intakes in clear water all night. Normally when staying here we take the tender down the little canal, land at the bridge abutment, and walk to dinner. But this anchorage was a bit further from the canal, and it was too cold and windy to want to launch the tender, so we just stayed home and had the leftover meatballs our friend Dave had made for my birthday.

One of many similar restaurants in FMB. This one has beer.

Yesterday was again bitter cold in the morning, and Louise fired up the gen when she got up to get some heat going. I was soon awakened by the wakes of passing boats headed out fishing; the no-wake zone we were in is apparently widely ignored. Whereas there had been no traffic whatsoever on Sunday, the wind had abated and it was a sunny day, cold notwithstanding. The lunar tide was again negative, and we waited until 10 to weigh the anchor so we could have a bit more water.

It was still shallow, with wind-driven water levels at least a foot below normal, but we made it through the whole day without touching bottom. We needed to keep moving in order to be in position for today's narrow crossing window to get to Key West, and so we had our sights set on getting at least past the Sanibel Causeway bridge and near the inlet for our departure.

Looking down the canal from the dinghy dock we had a view of Vector on her mooring.

There's an anchorage just past the bridge, with a dinner option in dinghy distance, but we learned our friends Erin and Chris, aboard Barefeet, were headed to the mooring field in Fort Myers Beach, just across the inlet. I spent part of the day going back and forth with the harbormaster about a mooring and we were able to book a 60' mooring in the east field for the night.

I went topside and lowered our VHF antennas, but it turned out I need not have; with the low water level we slid under the C-span of the Sanibel Causeway Bridge with two feet to spare. After rounding Bowditch Point we threaded our way through Matanzas Pass and most of the mooring field, passing where we had stopped on our last visit as well as Barefeet before heading under the bridge, around the corner, and back to the east field, where we picked up ball 64 (map).

The new main dinghy dock under the bridge. Nice, but busy. Last time we had to just tie to the seawall.

We met up with Chris and Erin at Doc Ford's Rum Bar & Grill, which has its own courtesy dock. It was great catching up with them, and we will see them again in Key West in a few weeks. It was a long, cold dinghy ride home.

The leaking water heater has had us turning the hot water pressure on just long enough to take our showers or wash the dishes, and we had come into the anchorage with the water fully hot, between running the gen in the morning, and using my new timer switch to top off the heat from excess alternator power just before we arrived. I turned the water on to shave before dinner, and in the business of trying to get ready and head out, I forgot to turn it back off again.

Some of the old beachside joints are still just slabs, but several now have food trailers.

We had barely sat back down after getting home from dinner when Louise asked "why is the water pump running"? I sprinted to the engine room to find the tray supporting the water heater full to its rim with water, and it was spilling over onto everything below it and into the bilge. 20 minutes of cleanup ensued, and since I removed most of it with a shop vac I can estimate we lost about four gallons of hot water.  Of course, replacing four (out of 20) gallons of 120° water with four gallons of 55° water meant having to run the water heater again before we could shower.

The rate of leakage has increased to the point where we have to take quick showers and we can no longer leave the water on long enough to run the 45-minute dishwasher cycle. The dishwasher can heat its own water but it is plumbed only to the hot water supply, so today I had to jury-rig a hose to the sink faucet to run it with the cold water supply, and that will continue until I can replace the water heater. The replacement is due to arrive in Key West on Friday.

Passing Barefeet on our way out.

This morning Erin and Chris dropped by in their tender for a chat before lunch. And after lunch we took our own tender down a nearby canal and tied up at the town kayak/dinghy dock near the city ball field and swimming pool, closed since the storms, for a stroll along the beach drive.

We returned to Vector just in time for our 1pm checkout, the latest they would extend us from the normal 11am without charging us another day. As 1pm was too early to get underway for Key West, we dropped lines and headed just east of the mooring field and dropped a lunch hook (map). I took the tender down to the main city dinghy dock under the bridge for a stroll around town; they have replaced the dinghy dock since our last visit.

The pirate tour was just coming back in as we left the pass. Arrrr.

The town is thriving. Lots of infrastructure is yet to be replaced, and some restaurants are still operating from food trucks, but the tourists and snowbirds are definitely here. Quite a change from our last visit, shortly after Hurricane Ian.  It would have been nice to spend a couple of days, and maybe catch up with other friends nearby, but we have this one very short window to get all the way to the Keys, and our non-changeable marina reservation starts Thursday.

We weighed anchor around 2:30 and made our way back out Matanzas Pass and set a course for Key West. That was perhaps a tad too early, because we have a fair current and good conditions, and so our arrival time on the plotter keeps creeping towards the very start of my morning watch. Louise does not like to drive into the harbor, and we try to plan for me to again have the conn well ahead of that time. I'll adjust course and speed throughout my watch to try to delay our arrival.

Tonight's sunset over the gulf.

The course I'd already plotted was not a straight line to begin with. By adding just about a mile to the overall length, I can keep us inside the 12nm territorial limit for several more hours. Outside of that limit, our Starlink terminal stops working. If I need to add more time to the trip I can just extend that dogleg, although it will not keep us in Starlink coverage any longer because the territorial limit line turns quickly east there.

We should be anchored in Man of War Harbor tomorrow, and we hope the marina will let us come in first thing Thursday morning before the wind picks up as forecast. We are booked until March 5, at which time we will start working our way back north. You will next hear from me after we depart Key West.

A New Year.

We are docked at the Venice Yacht Club (map), exactly where we were when I last posted here just over a month ago. No, we have not been here the whole time, and there is much to update. We spent yesterday offshore from Pass-a-Grille in a nearly flat-calm gulf, once again bypassing Sarasota due to weather, and I had several hours to get most of this post typed and the photos uploaded. As usual I had to turn my attention to navigating the inlet before I could finish.

Outside the eclectic Red, White, & Booze in Pass-a-Grille.

When last I posted here we had just arrived here to the Venice Yacht Club. While we really like their outdoor tiki venue, it was getting chilly by dinner time and we ate at the indoor bar instead. We had a bit of a chilly walk out to the point and back after dinner and then called it a night. In the morning we pumped out, dropped lines with the tide, and headed right back outside for Pass-a-Grille in heavy fog. I had to run the fog horn until we were out in the gulf.

This whimsical dog is one of four on the 21st Ave bridge from Pass-a-Grille.

After a long day in calm conditions we arrived to Pass-a-Grille inlet, where shoaling since our last pass had us skirting further to the south of the old channel. We dropped the hook in a familiar anchorage off Isla del Sol (map) a little before 4. At dinner time we splashed the tender and headed ashore at Red, White, and Booze, an eclectic and raucous joint in Pass-a-Grille with its own dock, just a couple doors down from our yacht club. It was a suggestion from our friends Dorsey and Bruce, who remember it from when it had different owners and a different name. I suspect they would be disappointed in it now. On the way home we took in the festive holiday lights along the canal from the water.

I liked this diminutive but festive dinghy at Red White & Booze.

Monday after lunch we had a very short cruise over to the St Pete Yacht Club dock in Pass-a-Grille (map), where we had booked one night for the express purpose of offloading the scooters, since we would be unable to do so in Treasure Island. Despite arriving after check-in time, we had to hover while a late departure scrambled to get off the dock. We waited until lunch service on the deck was completely finished before offloading the scooters, as we have to push them out right through the dining patio.

One of the over-the-top houses in Pass-a-Grille.

With the scooters off the deck I took apart our new FlopStopper to stow it, and in the process dropped one of the parts overboard. It was cheaper to order a replacement part than a diver to go hunt for it under the boat. We rode up to the Fusion Resort, our home for the next month, noting what has changed and what has not in the four years, and two hurricanes, since our last visit. We checked in with the resort staff and left the scooters in the garage before catching a Lyft back to the yacht club. We had a nice dinner in the club bar. After dinner I had a nice long evening walk to downtown Pass-a-Grille.

The tiny marina near the point at Pass-a-Grille, across from downtown.

Tuesday morning we dropped lines in bitter cold and made the short cruise to Treasure Island, timing two lift bridges and following the route in to the docks that we had trailblazed on our last visit. We docked just one slip over from where we stayed four years ago (map), coming in bow-first so that the damage on our port side would be available for inspection by the insurance adjuster during our visit. That worked out so well that we just stayed bow-in the whole time, with our power cord running forward along the starboard side deck.

Downtown Pass-a-Grille. I am not sure how many of the lights are full-time vs. holiday.

We checked in with the resort staff, all of whom have turned over since our last visit, including the dockmaster. There is no longer a bar or restaurant, and both pool wristbands and parking passes seem to be a thing of the past, diminishing the "resort" feel of the place. After getting all squared away and plugged in, I turned off all the battery chargers. to let our new solar panels take care of all our DC loads. That's healthier for the batteries than just leaving them on the charger, and it saved us a few coins on power at $0.25/kWh. Then we settled in for the month.

Holiday decor was in full swing downtown.

A month is a relatively long time for us to be at a dock, and yet it flew by in the blink of an eye. With a dozen or so friends in the area we had a full social calendar, and the rest of the time divided between medical appointments and project work. We had little time left over for more leisurely pursuits like strolling the beach, taking in any performances, or other cultural events. I did make it to the pool and hot tub perhaps a half dozen times.

"and one in the park as well ..."

We started the visit right out of the gate with a New Years Eve house party hosted by our friends Kristina and Atle at their downtown St. Pete condo. We met quite a few new folks there and enjoyed catching up with everyone. We did not make it to the midnight toast, catching an Uber back to Treasure Island just in time to see a few of the fireworks over the beach and elsewhere around the waterways. We were glad to be back off the road before the drunks hit the road, and we wished our Uber driver well for the evening.

Some of our gifts arrived while we were in TI and I put them "under" our tree.

We made it to a few Wednesday luncheons at the yacht club, and one monthly trivia night there as well. And we had many enjoyable evenings with our friends Karen and Ben in Clearwater as well as Steph and Martin, Dori and Bob, and Kristina and Atle as already mentioned.  We also had a visit over brunch with our long-time Red Cross colleague Theresa and her husband Pat, who were passing through the area. An unexpected but welcome addition to the list were Stacey and Dave aboard Stinkpot, who arrived from points north during our second week, and opted to take a slip at the very same marina.

Vector at the dock at Fusion. I did not think to re-take this after Stinkpot arrived, three slips to our port.

Dave fed us aboard more than once, and although they had to skip town for the actual day, he also fixed me a birthday dinner of meatball Parmesan with all the fixings a couple of days ahead. We have the leftover meatballs in the freezer. As long we we were dock neighbors, we also helped each other with projects, including Dave helping me muscle the anchor around, and Louise fixing some of their canvas with her industrial sewing machine.

New Years Eve at Kristina and Atle's place. A nice evening.

On the dining front, we visited all our old haunts and a few new ones, at least when we were not being fed by Karen or Dave. When we were here four years ago it was still the height of the COVID pandemic, and we ate almost exclusively outdoors. Consequently, while the patios were quite familiar, this was the very first time we had been in many of the dining rooms. On this stay it was seldom warm enough to dine outdoors. Many restaurants here have early bird specials that end at 5:30.

Sand sculptures on TI beach.

Pandemic economic conditions and the pounding of hurricanes Ian, Helene, and Milton took a toll on the area, and a number of places we remembered are gone forever. The Post Office is closed indefinitely, along with the hardware store, and the iconic Thunderbird resort at the end of the block is shuttered and likely will be demolished. The Treasure Island Club, already on the ropes when we visited last time, is abandoned and its docks closed.

The iconic sign survived, but it's dark.

Fortunately the Publix grocery is still here, although their dedicated dinghy dock did not survive and is closed, and so is the Walgreens, where we both topped up multiple vaccinations and I picked up meds after my several appointments. The pharmacists at this location are very pleasant and helpful. The Chase bank is closed while they repair the storm damage, but they installed a temporary ATM outside.

The Publix dock is fenced off and mostly sunk.

Locally in walking distance we dined at Gigi's, Britt's Coal Fired Pizza, BRGR, Sloppy Joe's (of Key West fame), VIP Mexican (very strong Margaritas), Foxy's (a diner, really), The Floridian (Cuban sandwiches and draft beer), Middle Grounds Grill (the nicest joint in town), and, new to us, R-Bar, the local dive joint that we eschewed on our last visit due to no comfortable outdoor seating. Further afield we made it to Slyce Madeira Beach, Khao Neow Thai/Sushi, The Frog Pond, Clear Sky, the Horse & Jockey, 82 Degrees, and both locations of our yacht club.

I'm told the Thunderbird is so badly damaged it will be razed.

The boat show came to town while we were here, and I spent the better part of a day there. I ran into long-time friends Curtis and Gill, who were giving a seminar, and I stopped by the Argo Navigation booth, where Dave was working, part of the reason they opted to dock with us in TI. I was a bit surprised to see that new boat prices have risen to stratospheric levels, even as the bottom is dropping out of the used market, with tariffs no doubt playing a role. I found nothing I needed, but I did talk to every insurance broker, as we are in the market for a new policy.

This is a 6-person raft similar to our 8-person. Smaller inside than a full-size mattress. Always a little sobering to see one inflated.

On the medical front we both did hearing and regular checkups, Louise had her normal screenings, we both got new dermatologists, and I got a new dentist as well as a second opinion on ortho, since there has been little improvement since my visit in Palm Beach a year ago. That necessitated an MRI, and we both ended up at Quest for blood work. I'm on some new meds which are helping a little bit. This is my first month on Medicare and so absolutely every provider needed a whole new pile of forms filled out.

Every shuttered business has turned its parking lot into a pay lot for the beach. This one at the Thunderbird.

Project-wise I was not nearly as productive as I was on our last stay here, at least according to the list I recorded in the blog back then. But still a good-sized list, mostly projects deferred until we were at a dock, had a good shipping address, or a chunk of time without moving.

Good friends Curtis and Gill. We go back two decades now.

First up was changing my phone provider. For reasons that I explained in this Facebook post (no account required to read), I ported my number from Google Voice to a conventional cell number through US Mobile (the top-rated carrier on Consumer Reports). I started the port while were were in Pass-a-Grille and I figured after a couple of days it would be done and I would download the new US Mobile SIM and be done.

Early birthday dinner aboard Stinkpot. Meatball parm over fettuccine, with fresh garlic bread. Photo: Dave Rowe

The whole process ended up costing me the better part of a week, with hours spent in tech support chat with US Mobile and Google (manufacturer of my phone). In the process I had to factory reset my phone twice, and I probably don't need to tell you how long it takes to get everything working again after a reset. To make a long story somewhat shorter, it came down to a hardware problem with the phone itself that was preventing it from loading electronic SIMs.

Friday market. Those carrots are enormous.

Regular readers will know that I just bought this phone in November when my trusty Pixel 5 bit the dust. It was still within the return window and it definitely was not working as advertised and so I just ordered another from from Amazon and put in a return request for the non-functioning one. That order got lost in transit and I ended up ordering yet another phone, and that finally did the trick, albeit after having to yet again restore everything from scratch.

Pool area from the rooftop deck.

The whole time I was working on this I could feel my "project month" slipping away from me, and I spent a few days completely unreachable with no working number. I was happy to finally have it fixed. As a bonus my new service costs less than half what I had been paying, for a better package, and for my first year it is half that again. And my new service works on both the AT&T and T-Mobile networks so I have better coverage as well.

I like these whimsical fiberglass sculptures at the car wash across the street.

Next on the list is the ongoing saga of the main engine cooling system. I spent many hours looking for leaks and pressure-testing both the engine and the water heater. I replaced a tired pressure cap on the engine, and determined that the exchanger loop in the water heater likely has a very slow pinhole leak. At this writing the water heater is still out of the loop.

Strolling the beach walkway.

With such a slow leak, rather than order an $800 water heater, I ordered the parts to do what should have been done when the boat was built: add a heat exchanger between the engine and the water heater so that nothing in the engine cooling system is higher than the expansion tank. With a separated system like this the water heater can operate just fine for a very long time with such an imperceptible leak, because it will not be under vacuum as the engine cools.

This aluminum expansion tank for the project has straight-threaded fittings. I need to figure out how to seal them.

I got most of the parts, but the heat exchanger itself is AWOL due to this last storm, and we had to leave without it. Amazon has already refunded me. And in the meantime, on Wednesday of this week we found a puddle of fresh water under the water heater, which means I now need to replace it anyway. The new one is on its way to Key West. I will still move ahead with the heat exchanger project because, really, the water heater, even a brand new one, should not be the high point of the engine cooling system.

The state forced St. Petersburg to black out this formerly rainbow intersection on Central. So the city powder-coated the bike rack rainbow instead.

Next up was the replacement contactor for the bow thruster. This is a plane-Jane item to replace the fancy "economizer" model, whose PWM economizing was causing interference on our VHF radios. I took it apart first to make sure the load contacts were actually plated copper and not pot metal or stainless before descending into the thruster bilge to install it. I had to reroute some wires down there and replace one of the big cables with a longer one, but the deed is done, it all works, and no more interference.

The inside of the contactor. I took off one of the contacts, flipped it over, and sanded off some plating to find copper underneath.

The dinghy steering has again been getting harder and harder to operate, and I spent one of the warmer days up on the flybridge pulling it apart, reaming it out, and greasing it back up. This is a messy job involving a shotgun cleaning kit and a lot of solvent, but the dinghy can once again be steered with just one finger, whereas it had been requiring both hands and a lot of elbow grease.

New contactor installed.

Another big, warm-day project was to shorten the anchor chain. Not because we want a shorter chain, but because the first 100' of chain is so worn that it no longer properly fits the chainwheel on the windlass, and that is causing problems. It's already been flipped, re-galvanized, and flipped again so the last 100' is just as bad, and we needed to get to the relatively unused 200' in the middle.

Louise captured me sawing through the chain link.

Being bow-in to the dock made this a great place to tackle this project, which required first removing the anchor from the chain. This involves cutting off the retaining collar from the hammer-lock style connector, pressing the pin out, and discarding the connector. Once that was done we spooled out 100' of chain, then I used a portable vise to clamp one link on the dock and I cut through it with my reciprocating saw.

Midway through removing the anchor connector. The outer pin retainer is on the dock.

That 100' of chain weighs 260 lbs, and we can't just take that much weight out of the chain locker, so the next step was to use the windlass to spool all of it back in to the bottom of the locker before running the "new" end out to the anchor and re-attaching it with a new hammer-lock connector. The boatswain reports that the anchor chain is now feeding much better through the windlass. At our next yard visit we will have the 100' we cut off re-attached at the back of the chain, so we still have 400' available, just with the final 200' being more worn.

The old hammer-lock connector and the removed link. Quarter for scale.

Smaller projects included installing a computer fan in the closet under the main stairway for improved airflow to prevent mold, and replacing reading lamps in the pilothouse with updated LED models. Finally, an addition to the list, my laptop started crashing randomly about a week ago (it's crashed four times since I started typing) and I have spent a bunch of time diagnosing that. That is still ongoing.

Intake grill for the new vent fan, tucked into the riser of the top step.

At the beginning of our stay I caught the tail end of the "Sanding Ovations" sand sculpture show on the beach; the sugar sand here lends itself to this and the sculptures are nothing but sand and water. We caught a bit of the kite festival in the middle of our stay, but I only got one night-time photo, as the following day was rained out. Stacey and Dave joined me for a sojourn to the regular Friday market in the park. And one day we rode up to Clearwater hoping to see the giant inflatable duck that was residing in Coachman Park, but it was deflated due to high winds and we instead just had a nice dinner at Clear Sky with Ben and Karen.

A wider view of Sanding Ovations.

Hearing and vision appointments at Costco in distant Clearwater gave me an excuse to stock up on meat for the freezer, though I found nothing else we needed there. We finally got new club parking permits for the scooters that will open the gates they installed nearly two years ago. And Louise had a couple of marathon quilting sessions at Stephanie's well-equipped home studio.

Only shot I got of the kite festival, with the kites lit up at night.

The pump-out boat that we had used on our last stay lost its county funding and shut down just as we were leaving, and with only a three-week capacity in our tank we had to take the boat out mid-stay. The closest option is the municipal marina in Madeira Beach, a half hour cruise. Water was low due to seiche and we promptly ran aground in the spot they tried to send us, and we had to wait for another boat to leave the deeper part of the dock. And their pump was glacially slow, taking us nearly 40 minutes to empty our tank.

New lamp in the pilothouse that replaced an incandescent "pantograph" style. It's hard to tell from this photo but this is the red mode rather than white.

Shortly after arriving I started calling Key West marinas to try to get reservations for February. I will spare you the long story — I spent hours — but suffice it to say that the best I could do was a month at the most expensive joint in town and starting on February 1. With our slip in TI paid for until January 30, that gave us a narrow window to make the journey, with unpredictable weather meaning we were likely to have to give up some pre-paid nights at one end or the other.

Ferg's in St, Pete. That's a Brunswick ball return behind Bob of Big Boy fame.

As we rolled up to the beginning of this week, it looked like our window would be to leave early Thursday morning and arrive to Key West late Friday night, which would have us at sea for my birthday but giving up just one night. Just before the cancellation/change window expired I called the marina to see if they maybe had some days open up at the beginning of March, and we got lucky; they were able to move our reservation out to February 5, this coming Thursday. I did have to argue with them about the change policy; evidently they forgot to update it on their web site.

Moonrise over our little bay.

That let me get some of the last Amazon orders delivered, and put off loading the scooters until Thursday morning. The marina has one slip that does not involve a flight of steps to access the finger pier, and although it is leased out, it has been vacant since we arrived. They let us use it to deck the scooters, which just required us to get them up one tall step onto the dock. I used one of our engine room tread plates as a ramp. When we returned to our slip we backed in for an easy departure in the morning.

Dinner at Middle Grounds. Photo: Ben Willmore

That also gave us Thursday afternoon for Karen and Ben to come down and spend some time with us on the boat to help me celebrate. After dinner at Middle Grounds right there in TI we all retired to the hot tub for one last soak. It was a great way to both celebrate my birthday and also wrap up a very nice stay in Treasure Island and the greater St. Pete area.

After dinner, Karen wanted to stop into Atomic Claw, an arcade of all claw machines across from our hotel in a round building that must have once been a bank. She won a stuffed pig. Here she is, striking a pose; Ben and Karen are just about to publish a coffee-table book of her yoga poses in exotic locations all over the world; find it here.

Yesterday morning we dropped lines in time to make the 8:20 opening at the Treasure Island Causeway, and were making the turn into the Gulf from Pass-a-Grille right at 9:45. By lunch time I was calling the Venice Yacht Club to ask if we could extend to two nights, because the weather tonight will not be conducive to anchoring. As I wrap up typing the wind is already 30mph, and increasing.

The warning flags are out, but Venice Beach is not closed. The beach patrol is ready.

We had a great passage and were tying up here at the dock by 4:30. The anchorage adjacent to the club, formerly full of questionable boats, is completely empty, as it was a month ago. We spent extra time getting secured for the winds, and then walked down to the Crow's Nest at the inlet for dinner. We knew we would not want to walk any father than the clubhouse for dinner tonight. It was a pleasant evening and we ate on their enclosed upstairs deck.

The historic San Marco hotel in Venice is now a boutique mall and residence.

Today before the wind got too bad I walked all the way into town and strolled the main street, a round trip of about four miles. It's become quite the trendy area, with a dozen or so nice-looking restaurants, and maybe one of these days we'll offload a scooter so we can go to dinner there. I noted the gulf is already a mess, and it will be ten footers by nightfall, which is why we needed to make haste to get here yesterday.

This turtle sculpture at Venice Beach is new since our last visit. Its mesh shell is full of plastic ocean debris.

Tomorrow we will continue south down the inside, with the gulf still unsettled. We'll take two days to get to either south Sanibel Island or Fort Myers Beach, where we will hunker down until we have weather to cross to Key West. With any luck that will be Tuesday or Wednesday. It's a 20-hour overnight passage from there. My next post will be underway on that passage, whenever it is.