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.