Monday, December 7, 2009

Now this is the Florida we’ve been looking for! It was close to 70°F in the morning with sunny skies and flat water. The homes and businesses along the channel were brightly painted and the pelicans, gulls and dolphins were out enjoying the day.
We left our anchorage at 9:30 am and backtracked a few miles to the Dunedin Municipal Marina where we had secured a place at the end of one of their docks for the night. Upon arriving at the marina, we found it tightly packed with sailboats and a few small fishing and power boats. We made our way to the only available space that could accommodate us and secured the boat.

Maureen talked to Craig and made a date to meet tonight on Blue Heron and then go out to eat. We busied ourselves with the cleaning chores and headed to the showers about 3:30 pm. Craig arrived shortly after 4 pm and found Gale and Lucy on the boat. The three of them went for a short walk and waited for Maureen to finish in the showers. She was very excited to see her brother and they enjoyed a very happy reunion! Craig mentioned that Dawn was sorry she wasn’t with him tonight, but she wasn’t feeling the greatest and needed to rest.

Craig took us for a ride around Dunedin to help orient ourselves with the downtown area then we pulled into Sea Sea Riders for dinner – a place where Craig and Dawn like to eat. After a wonderful dinner and even better conversation and company, we parted ways with Craig and walked across the street to the marina. We took Lucy out for a little walk and ran into the toy poodle, Alexander, along with his master, whom Lucy had met earlier in the day. We introduced ourselves to Alex’ owner, Walt, and learned that he was aboard the trawler anchored outside of the marina. Walt and his 85-year old mother were living on his boat full time and had been in Dunedin for about three months. Walt’s mother was having some health issues and they had found a doctor at the hospital that they liked very much. We also met Diver Bill who was waiting for his girlfriend, Kathy, to return from the grocery store. Bill and Kathy were living aboard his sailboat which was also anchored off the channel near the marina. He offered to take us to the grocery store in his van whenever we wanted to go. We learned from Walt and Bill that there is usually a third boat anchored with them – a German nudist – but he had taken his boat to Key West for three weeks to attend some kind of festival. We hated to ask – Which festival??