Day 213 & 214-Movin on down the coast

Monday, October 18, 2021
Temp: 82/68, Humidity: 48/73%, Top Wind: E14 mph, Precip: breezy & sunny, Miles Traveled: 25

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a bit breezy this morning, but it was scheduled to calm a little bit by early afternoon. We were only going 25 miles from here, south to Gulfport today, so we waited until check-out time to leave. We’re supposed to be gone by 11:00, so that is when we pulled our lines and bugged out. We were only traveling on the ICW today, so the wind was really only a concern for whenever we reached our destination and tried to dock in it. As it turned out, it was a really nice comfy day on the water! We’re definitely back into the land of big money… And big houses!

There were a few bridges to go under, but they were all just tall enough that we didn’t have to request any of them to open. This one goes to Treasure Island…. doesn’t that sound like a fun place?

In just over three hours, we found the Gulfport Municipal Marina. We’ve never been here before, and it is really a nice protected place. We filled up our fuel tanks again with 215 gallons to replace what we burned through when we crossed the Gulf…. at $3.26/gallon. I’ll let you do the math. 😬 And for me…. it was worth every penny to get across that big ol’ body of water as fast as we did!

They just have a linear floating dock here for transients, and fortunately we got one of the few spots. We spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out where to go from here and for how long. We need to burn up about ten days before we’ll get Island Girl pulled out of the water. A few of the marinas that I called have no transient space because they are 100% booked with seasonal or annual contracts. SHEESH! I’m glad we are OK with pulling her out of the water, because there are NO long term contracts to be had anywhere either. Even here in Gulfport there is over a 100 person waiting list.

Another thing we’re contemplating navigating around, literally, is that we heard on the VHF radio today that the Blackburn Bridge is not operational, and the length of time to repair it is unknown. It is south of Sarasota, and that means we would have to travel outside in the Gulf, from Tampa Bay to Venice. (There are really no good, dependable inlets in between due to shifting sands and shoaling.) So if we go from here to Sarasota, and it’s still broken, we’d likely have to come back north to the Bay to go out into the Gulf. Unless we got out the oars and rowed out one of the Sarasota passes at high tide, maybe. 🤔. I guess we’ll worry about that when the time comes. I will make some more calls tomorrow to see what we can do. Our goal is to be close to home to start unpacking the boat and taking some stuff home. At least our daughter is at our house right now, so she can come pick us up and take us home to get the truck. The logistics of coordinating a marina, the boat, and a car at multiple locations was making our heads spin. 🤯

+++++++++++++++++++++

Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Temp: 83/67, Humidity: 47/87%, Top Wind: E12 mph, Precip: breezy & sunny, Miles Traveled: none

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a beautiful morning with a nice breeze, not humid, and warm pretty sunsine. It was just perfect for enjoying coffee and The Good Book outside. 😊

Since it was a stay home day and I knew we were going to go find the Gulfport Brewing Company later, it was a good idea to fix some bacon and eggs for breakfast. Yum 😋 We made phone calls and got on the “pull-out” schedule at the boat yard for the 28th or 29th. AND, I was so happy to get a week at the downtown marina in Sarasota, at Marina Jack’s. It isn’t a cheap place to stay, but their weekly rate makes it actually less per day than we’re paying here! Plus, it is pretty close to home, so it will be easy to take stuff home from there. And…. it’s right downtown Sarasota, so we’ll be able to wander around town and see stuff that we have never scoped out when we’re home. We can explore Sarasota like we do all the other towns on the loop.
Once we got that all done, we went for a walk to the town of Gulfport. It’s a little less than a mile from the marina. What a cute little colorful town!

I was really surprised that there were several streets that were brick. Many of the houses were painted in bright island colors.

HA! Call me crazy – it’s a photo of a parking lot. But we know we’re close to home when the parking lots are made of shells, not gravel.

Like most of the establishments on the main street in town, the Brewery is in a house.

This was really fun! They had a whole bunch of outdoor seating, but we were kinda warm after our big walk, so we sat at the bar. We each had a beverage and a flat bread, and enjoyed talking with the other folks at the bar about their RV travels. They had some of the same observations that we’ve had…. there are a LOT of RVs on the road and camping space is not always easy to find. Plus, so many RV drivers are new to the scene, and aren’t very good at it. 😮 The Brewery house kinda still feels like a house, with comfy seating and tables for gathering. I liked this woven giant checkers table cover.

More tables in this room and that’s the bar back there, with the kitchen behind it.

We wandered around town and enjoyed all of the colorful buildings and designs.

We found a cute courtyard with a big patio and several establishments. Among them was the North End Taphouse. We visited with a couple of fellas there and really enjoyed the small town feel around here. Kenny says he wished we had a place like this at home. I told him that we might… but we never venture out to find it!

This was the main street! There really is a restaurant-house in those trees.

And this one looked nice. I think it was Italian, because their cute little outside tables had red and white checkered table cloths.

We walked along the waterfront and discovered they have a nice long pier here. Out yonder there is a big mooring field that belongs to the marina. It’s pretty inexpensive to rent a mooring ball if you’re OK with dinghying in to town. I don’t know what the rules are, but usually when there’s a big mooring field like this, the local government doesn’t want you just dropping an anchor. Although we saw several boats just anchored and not on balls when we came in.

This made me giggle. Somebody has a fun sense of decorating! Plus, it keeps you from being stabbed by the pokey ends of the cactus!

Back home at the marina, there really wasn’t a good view of the West for the sunset. This picture is looking east as the setting sun changed the colors of the clouds and sky.

This was the best I could get looking west.

Tomorrow we’ll peel out and head for Sarasota. Since we cannot go back to the same dock that we started from, we may call it the official end of our loop. What do you think? We’ll be about five miles north of where we actually started. Maybe we should wait until we go past the channel to our old dock? That would be technically accurate. But we won’t have anybody to celebrate with as we cruise past it. 😕 I vote for Marina Jacks for the changing of the flags and champagne ceremony!