No boat travel.
When we woke this morning, Clark found that he had missed a phone call from the repairman related to work on one of our Raymarine display units. He immediately called him back, found out he was available to work on our unit, and pulled out the tools required to remove the unit from the console. Clark was so intent on getting the unit up to Bradenton to get worked on that I worried he would forget to eat breakfast. I made something for him and "forced" him to take time to eat before he ran off.
Our friend Jim, whose dock we were using, offered to drive Clark to Bradenton to drop off the unit for repair. The two of them drove there while Carol and I stayed in Punta Gorda and spent time talking. The guys were back in time for lunch.
We agreed that we would check out the restaurant Carmelo's for dinner tonight. With rain in the forecast, we wanted to eat inside. They could not accommodate that but they did have a covered outdoor seating section. Our timing worked out well as we finished our dinner just as the wind picked up. We decided to leave before the rain came.
As we walked out of the restaurant, we had to dodge flying umbrellas - the kind that cover tables. The wind had taken two of them and swept them across the courtyard. As we ducked out of the restaurant, two waitstaff wrestled to get the wind-blown umbrellas under control. Jim has a great sense of humor. He asked the waitress fighting the umbrella if she remembered the story of Mary Poppins. The waitress replied, "I always did want to fly!"
Walking across the parking lot, Clark said, "I feel drops." Jim replied, "Walk faster!" We made it to the car just as the rains came. As we closed the car doors, it turned into a deluge. One minute more and we would have been soaked.
We got out of the car inside the garage, so we stayed dry throughout. Clark and Jim talked the rest of the night away. Sadly, we leave tomorrow. They had to get in all their talking before we could leave.
11/27/2018
Depart: Punta Gorda Private Dock 10:35
Arrive: Crow's Nest Marina, Venice, FL 4:35
Distance: 44 NM
Before leaving Punta Gorda, Clark spent time this morning making reservations at a marina for a couple of days from now. The exact date for completion of the display unit repair was unclear but hopefully Wednesday. Given that, Clark did not make a reservation for Wednesday night to give himself flexibility depending on whether or not the repair is done.
While he took care of reservation planning, I took advantage of the excellent WiFi to watch an episode of my Netflix show. We walked up to the house shortly after 9:30 to say goodbye to our hosts. Jim and Carol made homemade oatmeal, which Clark helped them eat. By the time we finally said our farewells, it was after 10:00. We pulled in our final lines and left the dock about 90 minutes later than originally planned.
 |
| View of canal at Punta Gorda |
With the cold front that moved in last night, we had much colder temperatures than yesterday. When we got out in Charlotte Harbor, we got hit with frigid winds. My phone showed a local temperature of 65 degrees, but with the wind, it felt at least 20 degrees colder. The winds clocked in at 20 knots with gusts to 25 kts or higher. We realized that coats and scarfs would be required since we planned to make the trip sitting at the upper helm. Brrrrr!
The trip to Venice took about six hours. We saw lots of water and not much else.
 |
| Old bridge remains |
 |
| Old bridge remains |
 |
| Line of birds standing on sand watching us go by |
Unfortunately, the bulk of today's travel took us straight into the north winds. We finally got a little relief when the sun came out as we entered the canal approach into Venice.
 |
| Bike trail along the canal |
 |
| Bikers on Bike Trail in Venice |
Clark pointed out the bike trail to me and reminded me that we had ridden here a couple of years ago. It brought back fun memories.
We arrived at the Crow's Nest marina in Venice just after 4:00. Our holding tank monitor showed that it was time for another pump-out. Before going to our slip for the night, we stopped at the fuel dock to take care of "business".
Clark lined the boat up with the fuel dock to let the wind do the work to land us. My, oh my, did that work! The wind caught us broadside and pushed us in so hard that Clark could not effectively control our landing speed using both the bow and stern thrusters together. We came in hard, but fortunately, the marina has nice fenders that we landed up against.
The pump out was unbelievably fast. Where last time, it took 45 minutes, this time it took less than 10. That was the good news. The bad news ... we had to figure out how to get ourselves off the dock with the wind holding us hard in place.
Clark worked out a plan of action to get us off. The dockhand and I walked the boat astern until we had the midships line at the last piling on the dock. He wrapped the line around the cleat there and then Clark backed on the line and turned the boat into the wind. I yelled for the dockhand to release the line, and we were free!
We moved the short distance to the next dock where transients dock. Expecting the wind to do its work for us again, Clark lined up the boat with our assigned space and waited for the wind to push. As we sat there, we wondered, "Where did the wind go?" Given the fast ride we had at the fuel dock, we were amazed that we had no wind force to push us. Slowly the boat traveled sideways to where I could throw lines to the men waiting on the dock to help us in.
Later, as the sun got lower and lower in the sky, the owner of the boat docked in front of us decided that he had had enough rocking, and just before the sun set, he pulled in his lines and moved to the back side of the fixed dock where we are tied up. Clark ran out to help him as he had helped us as we came in to dock. Clark thought the move might help the other guy and hurt us as his boat had been blocking some of our wave action.
Even though we put fenders in place, the wind beat us up all evening. The fenders rubbed up and down the poles on the dock making a terrible squealing sound every time. I had to wonder how I would manage to sleep tonight through the screeching noises. Clark checked his wind finder application on the phone and said that the winds should die down during the night and pick up again in the morning.
Unfortunately, the temperature tonight is supposed to drop down to 45. Travel tomorrow should be even colder than today. As we may be anchoring out if the display unit is not ready for pickup, it will be reminiscent of our cold nights coming down the east coast. I guess I will be digging out that electric blanket yet again.
 |
| Sunset in Venice, FL |
No comments:
Post a Comment