Sunday, October 17, 2021
Temp: 77/68, Humidity: 52/81%, Top Wind: NW12 mph, Precip: none- sunny, Miles Traveled: NONE!!
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This is one of the funnier tour boats here at Clearwater Beach Marina. SHARK! The tours were running strong again today, so we had lots of rockin & rollin goin on in our slip. The time travelers bugged out and left us all alone after noon. It was a beautiful day, with the humidity down. I could actually open the doors and windows…. my favorite kind of weather!! Sunshine and below 70 at night, around 80 in the daytime. 😎 And I always love waking up to sunshine, which is something like 360 days a year here.
This big tour boat really rolls us when it goes in and out. Surprisingly, it’s a fishing tour!
With the temperature outside only in the upper 70’s, and the humidity down, it was pretty darn comfortable out there. A good time to rinse down the boat. Here is a picture of some salt. This is not wet… it’s just crusty salt! So Kenny got out the Salt Away, and sprayed the Girl down. The product doesn’t actually dissolve the salt, but it makes it let go so it can be rinsed away.
It puts out kind of a sudsy spray, the suds gather up the salt crystals, and then you just rinse it off with plain water. It really does get the salt off!!
Once he was done and we got the windows all cleaned and dry, he started working on his captain’s chair. It is a bit wobbly and I’m afraid he’s just going to go splat one day, and that would not be good!! While he worked on that, I went for a stroll around Clearwater Beach. Mr. Pelican was keeping a close eye on us.
See? We’re almost all alone.
I promised you some dolphin statues today, so that gave me something to look for on my walk.
I don’t think we’ve ever been to Clearwater Beach by land, so it was fun to just stroll around and take in the sights.
This sculpture was in the main beach park, and says that it is the “Official Start of the Clearwater Dolphin Trail”. I didn’t know there was such a thing. I asked the Google about it… apparently there are something like 140 of them!! Trust me – I didn’t find them all!
Out by the pier there were all kinds of toys to play on, and music playing, so it was a really fun atmosphere.
I was surprised at how rough the water was! But then again, this is why we came here on Friday, because this cold front was coming! There was a lot of wave action.
But that didn’t keep the beach goers away. I walked quite a ways in the water, but there are itty bitty shells so after awhile, it gets a little rough on the feet. The water was so warm, I love it!!
Along the boardwalk, or “beachwalk”, there were fun buggies available to rent.
Here is just a small piece of the beachwalk. There are lots of entry points to the beach, each with a rinse off tower topped by a turtle.
HEY! Flowers! We haven’t had any flowers for quite some time! As I walked along, I was so thankful to be back in Florida. It is so beautiful and vibrant with life.
The Opal Sands Resort is where we had dinner last night. It looks pretty schmancy from the road!
This dolphin was channeling his inner zebra stripes!
This guy was hidden in an alcove.
A good thing to know around here for transportation is that the Jolly Trolley runs all along here and is a great option. It’s $5 for unlimited rides all day long, and it runs all over the place around here!
One last dolphin for you, then I found a Starbucks and bought us each a treat, so I headed back to the boat.
We just hung out and watched some football. I made reservations for us to go to the Gulfport Municipal Marina tomorrow, which is south of here, and on the way towards Sarasota. They have about the best diesel prices around, and we need fuel! We burned about 200 gallons on the crossing, so we still have about 100 gallons, but we usually don’t let it go much below that. We still haven’t heard back from the marina in Venice where we would like to put Island Girl for about a week. Tomorrow is Monday, so we’ll be able to call the yard in Port Charlotte and see if we can schedule a date and spot to pull her out of the water for awhile. It shouldn’t be a problem. This is the time of year when people are putting their boats IN the water after hurricane season.
We had dinner on board and just relaxed some more. We’re starting to ease ourselves into a lifestyle where we don’t travel every day. We’re going to have to find things to do to keep us active once we get off of Island Girl. 😳. Diet and exercise should be at the top of the list. We’ve both gained some poundage on this voyage!