Heading north, and the weather is getting chillier in the mornings! Once the sun comes up, it warms up. We arrived in Pelican Bay and found a perfect anchorage, tucked up close to the shore. We really like this anchorage, in the same bay as the entrance to Cayo Costa State Park and part of the waterway that Manatees migrate to. Upon anchoring, the couple in the next boat, a large catamaran, came by in their dinghy and asked if we knew that there was a canal leading to a small lake where Manatees are hanging out right now, its mating season. It will be a nice dinghy ride for the afternoon. We had planned on staying here for a couple of days and enjoy the scenery.
 |
| Entrance to the lake with Manatees |
We took the dinghy out and watched Manatees floating on the water. I didn't get pictures tho, we met a couple who were cruising on a trawler from Wisconsin. We started talking, ended up talking for quite a while as we watched the manatees come up and down.
We spent the remainder of the day walking through the state park to the gulf, took a nice long walk on the beach, dinghied around the islands. We revisited the island where we had that very strange encounter with the family and the stray children. We still haven't decided just what that was all about!
 |
| The abandoned tent, on the island where the family and children were |
|
The beach we walked, where the children were playing in the sand, and walked through those mangroves to meet up with us a second time
|
| We were ready to move on after a couple days enjoying the solitude of Pelican Bay. We weighed anchor at first break of day and motored up the ICW to Sarasota. We decided to take a mooring ball at Marina Jack's again and walk into the Whole Foods Market for fresh produce. It was a nice quiet run up the ICW. Raised the sails for a little while, opened bridges, played with the dolphins. |
 |
| This guy came up right next to me, along the side of the boat! |
 |
| Another boat was watching also, this is actually 2 VERY playful dolphins, the other spectator thought it looks like mating season for them too! |
 |
| EAGLE! |
 |
| The back of the elementary school that was right on the ICW, Venice |
 |
| Sailing! |
 |
| Egmont Key Lighthouse |
 |
| The entrance to Johns Pass, more "boys and their toys", this guy was really good. Kite Surfing! |
 |
Arrrgghhh!! Pirates!
|
We first anchored in Boca North Anchorage, up a short channel from Johns Pass Marina. A storm blew in (we knew it was coming) around 1:00 am. Ed sat up in the cockpit for over an hour monitoring our position. He was concerned about the anchor dragging. The wind was blowing out of the northwest 35-40 knots with higher gusts. Sure as he suspected the anchor started dragging. So in pouring rain and wind we got the anchor up and went straight for the marina. Luckily no other boat was there, and we got all secured and safe by 3:30 am. We were heading there the next day anyway! The marina staff remembered us from being there in January on Shamrock. They were very accomodating to us.
We had another great visit with Cathy, and she was able to cart us around town to do our errands and take care of mail. It is worth coming back regularly to Johns Pass, to see Cathy and she helps us so much with needed errands that come up. My brother Dan and his wife Lori came for a visit from Cocoa!
No comments:
Post a Comment