Family and Friends in St. Petersburg

We anchored four nights at the Vinoy Basin. The convenience to downtown was great and the view was beautiful. We did get to see that Floating Chapel away from the dock. They must have gone out for fuel, no wedding party to be seen.

Then on Friday, Feb 1st we moved over to the Harborage Marina. It’s very near the Salvador Dali Museum but we weren’t that tempted to go there. The Coast Guard has quite a presence here; we went past five large Coast Guard ships on our way into the marina. We tied up on their transient dock and were happy to see floating docks again. The laundry was only 50 cents so I got caught up on that and after anchoring four nights it was nice to “regroup”. I met someone doing laundry and got invited to her Tupperware party that night onboard their 52ft Irwin sailboat – that was a new one! She and the Capt. live aboard with their two daughters, two cats and two cockatiels. The Harborage was a real treat – very nice facilities and so many friendly people. Many of them are live-aboards who were very interested in our trip and willing to share their knowledge of the area on places to anchor, etc. We walked six blocks to a Publix and were able to haul almost $100 worth of groceries back to the boat with the little wheeled cart we had stored away. Paul was happy we had a chance to use it since we went to the trouble of bringing it on the trip.

That night we were dinner guests of an old friend from our Milwaukee days, Eileen, at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club – very nice! We took this picture on Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts where Eileen works. It’s a world class museum and has more than 4,600 objects from antiquity to the present day. I think we enjoyed it more than we would have the Dali Museum. Thanks again Eileen for your generosity – great to see you again.

On Saturday, Em’s nephew Randy, wife Cheryl and boys Ryan and Jake drove over from Tampa. They took us to the Saturday Market downtown where we met up with Cheryl’s parents who are wintering in Florida. They both look amazingly like they did last time we saw them at Randy and Cheryl’s wedding in 1992. I think they’ve been visiting Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth! It was a beautiful day to walk around and sample the different foods, enjoy the music, check out the produce and people watch – it’s quite an event. We got to go out for a little sail; pretty light winds so we didn’t break any speed records but it was a beautiful day to be out on the water and spend time with family. It’s like summer in Wisconsin without the bugs!

Cheryl's parents, Jim and Nancy B. (I didn't want to risk spelling your last name!)

This is Jake (4) and Ryan (9) at our slip at the Harborage Marina in St. Petersburg. I hope they weren't disappointed that we didn't see any pirates!

On Sunday night we anchored out just off the marina and the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida. We’re going to try and anchor as much as possible. The $80 a night in a marina adds up quickly. The Fox station carrying the Super Bowl was our worst channel for reception. Luckily we didn’t care all that much about watching it (since the Packers weren’t in it of course!) but we did manage to catch parts of it.

We had no reason to go into Tampa since Randy and family came over to St. Petersburg to see us (thanks again guys!) so on Monday we headed south toward Bradenton. Going under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge was cool; it’s 175ft. high and four miles long. It was a little hazy for pictures but hopefully you can get an idea.

This is looking back after we'd passed under the bridge. Note the Packer windsock is STILL proudly flying!

We anchored in the Manatee River just behind DeSoto Point near DeSoto National Memorial Park – only a three hour trip. It looks way more like a large lake or bay than a river with beautiful homes along the shore. We set the Fortress anchor in 9 ft of water (which was 7 ft in the am due to the tide). Paul wanted to have both anchors accessible, so the Bruce is now in the anchor locker and the Fortress is on the anchor roller due to storage issues. The Fortress seems to do a better job holding in the mucky sand bottoms; sometimes described as “mayonnaise”. We dinghied to shore and went through the visitors center and saw the informational film. (Actually we went to shore quite a few times: for Ginger plus they had very nice restrooms in the visitors center!) The replica Spanish camp was open and a costumed interpreter talked about the expedition and gave demonstrations – really interesting. A bit of history:

Hernando de Soto was a Spanish soldier who was granted a license to explore La Florida and landed on Florida’s west coast, probably near Tampa Bay, in May 1539. His army spent the next four years making its way some 4,000 miles across what is now the southeastern United States. It was a futile mission, doomed by unfamiliarity with the land, hostile Indians, and the leader’s overzealous pursuit of riches. What had begun as an adventure became an ordeal (I feel like that sometimes!) De Soto killed and enslaved large numbers of Indians and lost half his soldiers to sickness and Indian retaliation. He found no gold and established no colonies. Three years after landing in Florida, he was felled by fever and buried in the Mississippi River. Quite a sad story.

We had two peaceful nights at anchor and were happy there’s a mini heat wave going on since it kept it from getting chilly in the boat overnight. It got up to 83 degrees Monday and Tuesday (that’s about 10 degrees above normal) and should only drop to 59 or so at night. On to Bradenton later in the week.