Arrive St. Petersburg, Florida

Tuesday 12/5/2017
Depart: Manatee River Anchorage 11:00
Arrive: St. Petersburg Municipal Marina 2:00
Distance: 20 nm

Once again we had a leisurely morning before heading on our way. Our route today took us across Tampa Bay to Saint Petersburg, Florida.

We noticed when anchoring that the anchor chain on our boat appeared to be twisted. Since we have been anchoring in waters around 6' to 15' deep mostly, we have not had an opportunity to untwist our chain which is longer than the water has been deep. Crossing Tampa Bay, Clark noticed we passed over an area that showed 50' deep on our depth finder. He decided to put the boat in neutral / drift mode and drop the anchor to let it unwind itself. Prior to that, his plan had been to try to drop the anchor on the dock at a marina and untwist it manually. This worked much better with almost no work on Clark's part other than lowering and raising the anchor.

Crossing Tampa Bay towards St. Petersburg, we passed under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

Sunshine Skyway Bridge on way to St. Petersburg, Florida

It's a tall one!
No bridge openings and no need to wait for an opening here!

Looking back after passing under bridge

As boaters know, but non-boaters may not realize, there are no rear-view mirrors on a boat (or at least not on any boat we have ever owned). Consequently, it is the pilot's job to look around and be aware of other approaching vessels including those that come up from behind. Clark is good at this. I have to admit it is not my strong point.

Making our way across Tampa Bay towards St. Pete, Clark spied a rather large vessel coming up from the rear. He pulled out his binoculars and saw that it was a Coast Guard vessel. Clark haled the CG vessel on the VHF radio and was told that they needed the whole channel for the depth of their cutter.  Since the water was deep enough, Clark moved over to outside of the channel to be sure to stay out of their way. Otherwise, they had wanted us to pull to one side to let them pass.

USCG vessel coming up behind us  in channel
(we are outside of channel to give them room)

We thought they would pass us, but with a strong current in our favor, we were moving at over 10 kts. It appeared that very, very slowly they might be catching up to us, but it was unclear. Finally, because Clark knew we needed to turn off into St. Pete shortly, he slowed the boat to let them catch up and pass.

USCG Vessel 556  "Joshua Appleby" 

As it turned out, the USCG vessel turned off towards St. Petersburg before we did, so we had no need to worry about crossing in front of them. Happily, we got a picture out of the deal.

USCG boat heading into St. Petersburg

We traveled a short distance beyond where the USCG boat had turned to take a channel leading us into the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina. After calling on the VHF radio twice and getting no response, Clark called the marina on the phone. They instructed us to pull up to the fuel dock where a dock hand greeted us with the mail we had shipped here, a paper with our slip assignment, and a key to the restroom. We did not have to tie up. I just reached over the side of the boat to get our "goodies" and hoped I wouldn't drop them into the water!


Finding our "slip" turned out to be a struggle, because they did not assign us a slip exactly. I had asked if I should plan for a port or starboard tie. What we got was a side tie. Normally this is great, but in this case, we were appalled by the condition of the end of the dock. The dock itself is made of concrete. The end of which is very rough from wear.

Pilings lined up in front of the concrete keep a docking boat from getting too close. This is good from an "avoiding scratches" point of view but bad for "getting on / off the boat". I could tell that if we pulled up parallel to the dock, I would be spending the next 30 days on board because there would be no way for me to get off the boat. I mentioned this to the dock hand. Ultimately, we tied up with our stern tucked in and our bow sticking out.

The level of difficulty for embarking / disembarking changes as the tide changes and the gap between the boat and the dock increases or decreases in width. Mandy, from Shell Belle, labeled the various antics one has to go through to get on and off the boats at dock "Boat Yoga" because you never know what position you will need to get into.

View from our boat in St. Petersburg Marina

Sadly, we did not get a sunset picture tonight even though we got notice of sundown when we heard the loud sound of a cannon boom. I did not feel like cooking, but I also did not feel like going through the ordeal of finding a restaurant that we both could agree on. Ultimately, I cooked hot dogs and called it a night.