In St. Pete

We are in St Petersburg.  Great trip. Wedid not get to leave as planned. As we indicated, we were leaving CarrabelleThursday to visit friends in St Petersburg.  Well, the husband has been working in Georgia and was finishing up Thursday and wanted us to wait for him so he could go on the boat with us from Carrabelle to St. Pete. ( he loves boating) he should get here about 7:00  so we waited for him.   We talked to another boat that left near Tarpon Springs last night and docked right next to us a few min ago and they said it was beautiful over night and a little chilly but no waves and a hugh moon.

So Bill got to Carrabelle and we left Friday Morning. Started the Genset and the engines, warmed them up, slipped the lines and backed Sandpiper into the river current and we were underway around 0900. Had been looking for a nice weather window and we got it.

This is us leaving Carabelle;

The roughest (maybe 2-3) it got was when we left the bay and into the Gulf at the pass of Dog Island  and St. George Island and a short way into the Gulf. It was the tide and within a couple of hours it got really good. Hit the bouy and set the autopilot and off we went for 27 hours. It was beautiful out there. Water was clear, saw lots of fish from flying fish, to porposes, to Maui-Maui, and some we got no idea, acouple of turtles and that night a lot of stars. That was awsome. Then at midnight the almost Full Moon. Hard to explain, you would just have had to been there. Here is a couple of pics to try and describe the trip.

The sunset

Breakfast - notice the heavy wave action in front of us

Bridge at St Pete

So we got  to the marina, Pam was waiting, and their were hugs all around. We checked in got to the slip, had an arrival after getting Sandpiper settled in. Then it was  Bill and Pam off to their home and we off to the shower and a LONG nap. Later we all got back together and had dinner. After they left us at our boat, we were trying to relax and lots of "gunfire" went off. It really was firecrackers and we were treated to a great fireworks show. Bill called and said he had arranged it just for our arival (yeah right).

Later  Carol discovered she had broken about a third of her right bottom wisdom tooth (probably from biting her tounge with me and Bill around). It did not need an emergency denist trip  so we waited until today (Monday) to get it fixed. Found a GREAT denist downtown about 1/2 mile from the boat. All is fixed and we ready again (as soon as the deadner wears off).

So now we are kind of settled in again. Got a couple of things to do on the boat (as always) but no major issues and she did GREAT on the trip. Will reprovision for our trip back to Carrabelle later, hope to go on a couple of day trips in the area and just see the sights of western Fla and visit some more with Bill and Pam.

All is well and Life is Good here. Hope is is whereever you are.

Steve and Carol aboard m/v Sandpiper

Leaving Carrabelle for St. Pete

Well it has been a little over a month here on the river. It has been great.

The marina has character and the town characters show up daily to make it really fun. They say;  " Carrabelle - a small drinking town with a BIG fishing problem" and it is kind of that way. But it is time to go to St. Pete and visit Bill & Pam. So the weather window is opening on Wed evening. We leave Thursday morning, go straight across, and get to St Pete at the marina where the Wilson's have their boat on Friday afternoon. The plan is to let them show us where the good anchor out spots are, visit as much as possible (they both are working etc) and just enjoy life there for awhile. Maybe even a side trip to Disney.

Then we return to Carrabelle. There is a lot of places around here we want to visit (Dog Island, St George Island, Apalachicola, Port St. Joe, Alligator point, etc and do a bit of fishing. And one of the big attractions here is that being in FL for hurricane season suggests that you need plans to take care of your boat and you if one comes your way. Well this here is a lot like Corpus Christi, the hurricanes seem to go somewhere else (with no guarantees) but here, if we have to hide from a hurricane, we go up the river about 5 miles and tie our boat to the string of locals and the trees and have a party (or leave). So we will hurricane season over here, explore this part of Fla, catch a few fish, become a character like those here and then leave to continue our exploring (Southwest and East Florida, and the east coast to the Chesapeake) sometime after November.

We are planning a trip back to CC somewhere in there (Sept-Oct time frame) to see everyone, catch up on everything, leave stuff we took on the boat we don't need and pick up some we think we need. Hope to see you all then.

We turn the SPOT on when we leave.

Life is good and all is well for Carol and Steve aboard m/v Sandpiper