Why we are in Florida—then the northerly winds come back

Perfect weather (80/60’s) brings good traveling time so the mooring field has some vacancies for the first time since we have been here.  We took advantage of the sunny days and took a day at the beach where the people watching was awesome and Happy Hour at The Beached Whale was fun.  Sunday brought the Daytona 500—we meant to be there but it was good to hear Jeff Gordon do so well on TV and see the great finish where Denny  Hamlin barely edge out Martin Truex.  Nascar Life after Jeff (my driver) and Tony fading into the sunset (Terry’s driver) was still exciting.  Then we celebrated sunset with friends from LiLa Blue and we went to the Art Festival at Coconut Point Mall—something we would not have done if we hadn’t had the car. 
Yesterday we woke up to dolphin playing outside our window –what an awesome sight—but it foretold a change in the weather.  In the afternoon we had storms and wind, such that the ball on our mooring, broke away and was carried down the channel (we were OK-apparently the ball was like a bobber on a fishing pole, just there to show where the mooring is located.  Well, the rain is behind us but the cool winds are left.  It will warm up in a couple of days but for now we will take a

windy boat break for Fitz to get the taxes done. As we listen to a lot of our CD music which found us with the Beatles’ Taxman.

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Nice beach here even with an ice cream vendor!

Art Festival was interesting

Rock Furniture

Motion Art--new to us medium- picture changes as you move past it

Full Moon on the Mooring Field

Happy Hour with LiLa Blue
 

Night lights on the bay

Pretty sunsets

 

Fort Myers Beach

Fitz dropped his phone in the water! Disaster.  That started our day of moving the car from Dunedin to Ft. Myers Beach (a 3hr. drive each way) –the jury is still out as to whether the car will be more help than hindrance.  And when we get to Ft. Myers Beach Mooring Office the “Mooring Nazi” will not let us pay for the mooring in advance (we will bring the boat in tomorrow) and until we have the mooring contract we cannot park our car or (more exactly) pay for the permit to leave the car there.  No logic in our book plus a somewhat s***** day so we paid the big bucks down the beach to be able to leave the car and go get the boat. Arrived to the Mooring and got checked in, car permit, and all the rules for living in the mooring field.  Then we picked up the ball next to LiLa Blue—our friends Larry Crowder and Linda Talbot.  Warmer temps (75/60) and busy place and asked about the best Happy Hours ($5 apps and $1 drafts—how can you beat that?) on the beach.  This is going to be a great place to spend for a long vacation.  Life on a Mooring Ball will be a challenge—you have to sign up a time for the Pump-out guy (Ubba-not Bubba as Fitz insists on calling him), dingy into shore for anything, and what do you do about water?! This will take some planning –we are up to the task.  Plus there is happy hour with neighbors LiLa Blue and the price is right.  A trip to the Verizon store got Fitz suited up with a phone (we recommissioned my old iphone5) so aside from hearing a lot of cussing whenever Fitz is upset that this phone is different in some way, we are both happy campers. 

Every night at sunset Larry blows his conch shell--he is really good

 

LiLa Blue

 

Linda Talbot --friends we met in Dunedin 2 years ago after we crossed the Gulf

 

Lots of Looky Loos come through the mooring field daily these people had 4 350hp engines
 and thrusters so they turned on a dime--impressive
 

 

Pieces of 8 is the Pirate Ship that docks right across from us--they go out with big
crowds about twice a day--would love to take Leeton and Holden

 

Moving South along the Gulf Coast

Super anchorage outside the Don Caesar

We left Dunedin on a beautiful morning to mosey down the Gulf Coast with Ft. Myers Beach in mind to squat for another month.  A little warmer—totally different in that we will pickup a mooring ball and not be plugged into a dock for a month.  First night we anchored in the shadow of the Don Ceasar at the foot of St. Pete Beach and walked about a mile for fabulous pizza on Passé Grille. This was the land of the dolphin playground and they followed us all the way down the coast.

Next we anchored in Otter Key outside St. Armand’s Circle and Lido Key (across the bay from Sarasota).  Ringling Circus kept his elephants on Otter Key and it is a short dingy ride into St. Armand’s where we met up with Karen Gaudy from Captain’s Choice and her fun girlfriends who are in Sarasota for a girlfriend’s trip. It was so fun--made me homesick for my friends. Lose The Sugar, You're Sweet Enough: A Whole Foods Prescription To Better Health-- Karen Calandra is the name of Karen’s author friend –sounds like a worthy book to read and she looks great so it must work.  Mark and Karen on Captain’s Choice will start the Loop again in August and hopefully come by Nashville to see us. 

Anchorage outside St. Armand's/Lido/Otter Key--million dollar view and location

 

Fitz enjoyed loved going to lunch with the girls--Karen Gaudy and Rosemary and the other Karen

 

Loved the lions along the canal into town
 

 

Loved the high end fashion in St. Armand's

 

Anything to fill the pew

 

After coming through Siesta Key, we anchored at Indian Mound Park near Boca Grande where they are replacing a bridge so the channel was closed until Monday morning.  For the 40 miles traveled that day we went under mostly 25 ft bridges and only had to have one open for us.  Glad we could get down to under 20ft. –a trawler we traveled with for the last few bridges could not get under them and so they had to wait—long day for them.

  

Jr. Pirate Ship

Sunset outside Englewood

Tornado damage along the ICW in  Siesta Key across from where we vacated for a few years

 

 

Monday we went traveled past Boca Grande, Cabbage Key and Captiva to Cape Coral and the dock of Kitty Nicolai --one of those people with a lovely home on a canal off the superhighway of the Channel leading into the Caloosahatchee River to Ft. Myers (which along with Lake Okeechobee- you can take to the short cut over to the Atlantic Coast).  We came into here on St. Patrick’s Day weekend (a Saturday) 2 years ago and thought there had been a bomb scare in Ft. Myers—this is the busiest Channel we have seen on the Loop.  Kitty is the Harbor Host in Cape Coral—about 10 miles up this river.  She took us in, allowed us access to her Wi-Fi, pool, electricity, water, laundry and even feed us dinner.  She is a very nice lady and a great Harbor Host--her place is very near the center of Cape Coral.  

 

Lola and Kitty on Sunny Days and Don and Fitz at dinner on Kitty's porch

Peyton wins and we get on the road again

The Superbowl went our way!  All Vols have held Peyton as the best thing that has happened to our football program and since 1998 he is the reason to watch the NFL (except for the Titans).  If this is his last rodeo he will go out on top and we love him for that too.  Britton Colquitt and Malik Jackson also did us proud.  While here we have also enjoyed watching the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary leading up to the Presidential election next November.  When we leave here we will not have reliable TV for a while so we are enjoying it while we have it.

   This is our last week in Dunedin (for now) and we really have enjoyed it here.  We biked along Victoria Drive and Santa Barbara Lane and saw the beautiful homes and moss covered trees that made us fall in love with this area 10 years ago.    Tomorrow we have a weather window (this weeks’ gale force winds and 40/50 degree weather will go away) so we should have a comfortable week to travel towards Ft. Myers.  Soooo…we have vegetable soup in the crock pot,  bagged up the bikes and did our last load of free laundry for a while.  We have gotten to know Eddy and Linda Johnsen aboard Spiritus here—he is the weather guru putting out a weather advisory for all members of the Great Loop members on when to make the big crossing across the bend from Apalachicola to Tampa.  This is a big thankless favor to all boaters and he is just that nice.   They will head south tomorrow as well—we hope the La Niña will turn to warm/calmer weather.  In the mean time we heard from the O’Donnells that they left us to find 3 inches of snow and 15 degree weather in Nashville—everything is relative.  

Typical home waterfront on Victoria Drive

We loved this mural in the entranceway of a home on Santa Barbara Drive

 
 

We love our Peyton

 




Superbowl pancakes with our Canadian Maple Syrup--yum.

Gasparilla and the O'Donnell's

Hello from Gasparilla!

Gasparilla was fun and gave us a chance to visit downtown Tampa as well as join in the invasion from the pirates.  We caught a few beads and did a lot of people watching and were entertained.  We went early and left about a half hour before the end of the parade (10am to 5pm) so we did not have to contend with bad traffic.  The weather was absolutely perfect so we will chalk this one up to a big success.  On Tuesday, Terry and Julie O’Donnell drove down from Nashville—we took the big boat out for a cruise down the ICW past Clearwater to Bellaire –it was sunny and very windy –a very pleasant ride. Yesterday was a stormy day  so we drove down the coast from Tarpon Springs to Passé Grille and did some site seeing of our old haunts from Katie’s college years down here—fun times. They drive to Sea Grove to visit Julie’s brother and his wife today—we will miss them a lot. 

Floats were elaborate

 

Pirates invaded from the sea (along with hundreds of pleasure boats)-
 notice the crowds of people in the crows nest- that is where I would want to ride

 

People watching was great--this was a dad and his 2 visiting children from Austin, TX

 

Terry and Julie were great fun