2018: Gulfport to Sarasota FL

12/1/2018

Depart: Gulfport Municipal Marina 9:30

Arrive: Sarasota Florida “White Beach” Anchorage 2:45

Distance: 37 NM

With all of our chores completed yesterday, we only needed to get ourselves together and depart this morning. Still that took a bit of extra time with the very long walk to the head. The walk took us about 20 or so minutes round trip. While we were there, I asked Clark if we should hand over our gate key and have one of the guys come back with us to let us in to our boat. He said, “No, we’ll pull up to the fuel dock and hand it over when we leave.” So that became our game plan.

Back at the dock, we found we had some company of the feathered kind that had come to visit.

Blue Crane strolling the docks

Seeing double - "birds of a feather ..."

Shortly  thereafter, we undid all our lines and made our way basically sideways across the water to the fuel dock to drop off the keys. As we approached 3 guys came out to help us dock with the assumption that we were coming in for fuel or something more exciting than returning keys. I yelled to the young guy who was making his way down to the dock, "We only want to return our keys." He came and stood on the floating dock about 25 feet away and said, “Throw them, and I guarantee I’ll catch them!”

Hah! He had more belief in my ability to aim than I did. I had 3 keys, all attached to each other, and not attached to a float of any kind. If they went in the water, they went down fast. Clark continued to maneuver his way, working the boat sideways to dock. We were wearing our headsets, so I continued to advise him on distances to dock and the boats fore and aft. Then, unexpectedly, I said to Clark, “Okay, we can leave now. He has the keys.”

Since we were still at least 10 feet from the dock, Clark had trouble comprehending this statement. “What do you mean?” “Oh, I threw him the keys, so we are good to go.” “You threw them???!!!” “Yes, and just like he said he would, he caught them with no trouble at all.” 

With that, Clark abandoned the docking exercise, and we were on our way. I knew I practiced throwing things into the garbage can at home from long distances for a reason! I have a pretty good throwing arm and aim!

Clark planned to anchor near a bridge in Sarasota where we anchored once in the past. I remembered it as a beautiful site yielding a gorgeous sunset picture of the sun going down behind the bridge located nearby. However, as we made our way south, Clark decided he had to reconsider our anchorage for the night.  We had southerly winds gusting to over 30 knots. The anchorage he planned on had no protection from the south.

He found something a little further along our route that appeared to have good protection from south winds. We had plenty of daylight time to get there, and the new anchorage choice did not add too many miles to our journey. As always, Clark chose to drive from the flybridge, even though he repeatedly got hit in the face with salt spray.

Had I stayed in my helm seat beside him, I would have gotten the spray too. Wisely, I decided to move to the side seating where I had protection from the full enclosure. I sat there enjoying the book I was reading until suddenly I too got hit by spray. Our shift in travel direction by only a few degrees had left me unexpectedly vulnerable. 

I grumbled, put down my book, and went to stand behind the helm seat until we adjusted our direction once more to be where only Clark got hit with spray. At least the wind was from the south and warm as opposed to the other day when it had been a north wind hitting us head on and freezing cold.

While we tolerated the windy weather, others were out clearly loving it.

 Literally “flying” by in front of us
(He is fully out of the water and in the air)

Single-handed maneuvering

We traveled today “on the inside”. I could not imagine what it would be like to be on the Gulf today. We went under all the bridges that Clark had avoided on our way from Venice to Punta Gorda. At each one, Clark carefully assessed our height needs against the listed available bridge clearance. For many we had the clearance we needed, but not for all.

We had the current against us as we crept up to the Stickney Point Bridge to assess our situation. We measured ourselves to be 21.5 feet tall. (That, of course, depends on how much fuel and water we are carrying.) When we took our height measurements this summer, we were low on both fuel and water, so normally we might need less clearance. 

The ruler on the side of the bridge showed something around 17 or 18' of clearance with a signpost that indicated we could add 4' of clearance to that number at the center of the span. Since we measure 21.5', the numbers felt a little to close for comfort. I normally say we need 22' and Clark says 23' to be safe.

As Clark stood on the seatback to get a visual on us versus the bridge and we debated our chances of making it under, the bridge tender called on the VHF radio to us, “You’d be better off waiting for my next opening with that radar tower you’ve got on there.” Clark asked when that would be. “At 2:15”, he replied. “Okay, thanks, that's only a few minutes away, we will await your next opening”, Clark responded as he let the boat slowly back away from the bridge. Clark told me as we waited for the opening that he did not think we could have made it under.

Continuing on our way, we got to see Sarasota on our port side and Long Boat Key and Siesta Key on our starboard.

Approaching Sarasota, FL

Sarasota, Florida

Someone else enjoying the warm, southerly wind

Where we originally planned to anchor
(tucked in the corner on the far side of this bridge)

Sarasota, FL

 

When we dropped anchor at the “White Beach” anchorage, the wind was howling even with the southerly protection the landscape offered. Clark made doubly sure the anchor would hold given the force of the wind. Other than some slight rocking when a boat sped by on the G-ICW or when a particularly forceful gust of wind hit us, we were comfy cozy here. 

The best part of all -- we managed to find an anchorage where we could pickup a WiFi signal! Yay! Not enough signal for Netflix, but with patience, I had enough to write up my blog entry.

For tonight’s sunset, Clark took one look at the sky and said what I was thinking … 

“Pink!”
(Sunset at “White Beach”
anchorage near Sarasota, FLorida)