AN END TO A SUPER CRUISING ADVENTURE

Well, another cruising season has come to a close.  We are happy to be coming home, but sure do miss this islands already!  We left St. George Island at sunrise and motor sailed for a little while. The winds were out of the south at 12-15 kts.  I was at the helm and out of nowhere we heard a clunk! and the transmission slipped out of gear.  Ed was down below and came up immediately to diagnose.  We had the sails up, so we didn't have to stop.  Ed went down to the engine compartment and looked and listened while I put the boat into forward, neutral and reverse.  Ed determined it was the transmission.  It intermittently will go into forward, so we went on.  We were thankful we were in a sailboat and there was a breeze.

We were heading into Apalachicola and Ed says, huh...There's a house in the middle of the channel!

It was!  A floating house.  We had met Rob at St. Andrews Marina a couple of years ago, he builds these.

Steered by a smaller boat hipped up to the houseboat

An outboart on the back

We motor sailed at idle speed to avoid the knocking in the transmission and kept going, rather smoothly.  We stopped in White City, at a free dock.  It was a nice floating dock, at a city park, adjacent to a boat ramp.  We tied up and relaxed the rest of the evening.

I took a picture of this guy from the cockpit.  He was resting on the lifeline on the bow

Manatee at the floating dock

Picture taken from the fishing dock

Park pavillion

Ewe!! Tons of black grasshoppers

We had originally planned on taking our time getting back to the marina, but due to the new transmission problem, we thought it best to just keep our fingers crossed and keep going.  Once out of the "ditch" and into St. Joseph Bay we were able to sail all the way down the coast to St. Andrews Pass.  The transmission worked when we needed it to and got into the marina without difficulty. 

Shrimp boat working

St. Andrews Pass...home!

We will stay in this little piece of paradise for the summer and see where our next adventure takes us!

Have a great summer everyone! Thanks for following us on Manatee's adventure.

LONG KEY TO THE PANHANDLE

We left out of Long Key the following day and made good time to Shark River, where we anchored for the evening. This time we were prepared for the mosquitoes and no see ums and had our screens all in and bug spray in the cockpit from a couple of miles away.  We had a nice peaceful night.  The weather has been so calm, we have a perfect window to head north and made our plans to visit Cathy and Mark in St. Pete Beach and Robin and Marc in Tarpon Springs. We motor sailed when we could and just motored when we were in the ICW and were unable to sail. I won’t bore you with every anchorage details, since this is now our fourth time coming this way and blogging. I will however take the liberty to bore you with pictures!!

Shark River at sunset

Sunrise in Naples

Fort Myers Beach mooring field

We first met Scott and Mary on Fleur De Leis in Bimini, then hung out with them at Great Harbor Cay Marina.  We met up again with them in Ft. Myers, and later in Pelican Bay

Its spring!  Lots of baby ospreys

"Crazy Mile" stretch between Ft. Myers Beach and Sanibel

We had this guy play with us for quite some time, had a double fin!

He kept jumping right beside the boat

Sanibel lighthouse

We spent a couple of days in Pelican Bay, just because it's probably our favorite anchorage on Florida's west coast.

Pelican Bay anchorage

Osprey fishing

Going down for the fish, but he missed!

Sunset in Pelican Bay

A walk along Punta Blanca Island (where we think we saw the ghost children last year).  This was erect last time we were here, it was a tarp structure that we think someone was living in at the time.

We saw this in the sand in the middle of the island, huh....ghost children?

Strange looking seed pods on a large vine, all over the island

We anchored off the ICW by Don Pedro State Park.  This osprey couple stayed on this sign all night.  I think they were deciding this is their new home, for the babies.

It was all very peaceful, until a couple of bald eagles showed up.  They disturbed the ospreys and a scrimmage in the air ensued!

If you blow up this picture, you can see the expression on his face...intense!

The fight got interrupted when the eagle got hungry!

He got a big fish, looked like a jack

Another awesome end to the day

Pretty pelican

Boys and their toys

DeSoto Point

We anchored at the mouth of the Manatee River, by DeSoto National Park and Monument

Hernando DeSoto was granted permission in the 1500's by King Charles V to explore new lands (Cuba and La Florida) only if he brought the Catholic religion to the new land.  This monument was placed and maintained by the Catholic Diocese of Venice, Fl.

Dinghied into the park and took the informative nature trail

DeSoto monument,  minus the 9 ft bronze statue of DeSoto, which due to vandalism was removed and is now in a museum in Bradenton

monument

Blowing the conch horn has been around for a very long time!

So has collecting the conch!

We learned that there are black mangroves and red mangroves.  The black mangroves' seeds germinate on the tree, rather than after falling to the earth

Small sailboat race!

And...another awesome sunset

We decided to stop in Pasedena at the Pasedena Marina to visit with our friend Cathy.  It was a very nice place and we had a great weekend!

Around Treasure Island, someone had a bad night, wasn't paying attention and ran right into the reef, ouch!

More boys and their toys! Kite Surfers

Outside Tarpon Springs, Three Rooker Bar.  A beautiful anchorage, but gets crowded with partiers on the sandbar

Walking the beach (gulf side)

Spring is in the air!  A cute gull couple

The island is a bird sanctuary, and boy were there birds.  Mostly gulls, a few osprey and a few ducks

Flocks of gulls kept busy all day, landing and taking off, flying to one side of the island to the other. They were very noisy, chattering and squawking all day.  They would all leave and go somewhere (?) at night and return at dawn

Wait...is that Capt. Ed feeding the gulls? Oh my. He MUST be bored!

Stash from one morning's walk on the beach

Tarpon Springs City Marina. We spent a night there while visiting with the Browns.

As we were leaving to cross over to Carabelle, we could not figure out what this was.  As we got closer we realized it was a HUGE tent and easy-up. From a distance, it looked like a house!

We left at dawn on Friday morning.  The winds were super light and the sea was calm and glassy.  I was hoping for a calm lightweight sail/motor for the 24-28 hour run we had to do.

We had a very peaceful and calm crossing.  We had dolphin playing with us, we were given a show of 2 groups of at least 15 dolphins each jumping and diving around the boat for a few minutes. 

 We thought we might have spotted a "square grouper" and detoured to check it out.  (I didnt have the camera near at the time).  Turns out it was a large sea turtle, asleep, with a gull standing on his back.  As we got real close, we startled him and he woke up and dove straight down.  The water was so clear we could see a few fish hanging onto him too!

Sunrise!  I am always happy to see sunrise after running all day and all night. ( Ed does a double shift for me at night)

We anchored off St. George Island at 8:00 am.  We ate a good breakfast and took a nap before walking the beach and hitting the sack early.  Weather window says "go now!" We were planning on taking our time and visiting more beaches on our way home, but adverse weather is coming in on Tuesday, so off we go.  We'll leave at dawn tomorrow and get to White City or Port St. Joe.  Then over to Panama City by Monday evening.